CONECTA CALDEIRA
BIG COMPANIES AND STARTUPS CONNECTED TO TRANSFORM CHALLENGES IN INNOVATION OPPORTUNITIES.
The Conecta Caldeira is the Open Innovation Program of the Caldeira Institute, which connects the largest corporates in Brazil with startups in the world, transforming business challenges into solutions that accelerate results:
+700 startups mapped | +100 connections generated | 44 challenges launched
HOW IT WORKS
01 CORPORATES REGISTRATIONS
Register your challenge and participate in the specialist innovation program that connects solutions with startups.
02 STARTUPS REGISTRATIONS
Applications for the connection program must be submitted from August 6, 2025, to September 5, 2025.
Check out the participating companies:
SLC Agrícola, Unifertil, and Equatorial.
03 SELECTION
Stage in which the selection of the registered startups takes place. The communication of the selected startups will occur between September 11 and 12, 2025.
04 PITCH DEMO
The selected startups will take part in a Pitch Demo, where the companies will determine which startups are best aligned with their respective challenges.
Pitch Demo – September 22 and 23, 2025
05 CONNECTION
After the Pitch Demo, the selected startups will take part in a follow-up meeting aimed at advancing toward a potential POC (Proof of Concept).
WHO CAN PARTICIPATE?
To launch challenges: corporates that are members of Instituto Caldeira.
To solve challenges: preferably startups that are already operating/scaling – ready to present their solutions to the companies.
CHALLENGES
CHALLENGES
01
How to automate the match between cargo, vehicle, and implement to enhance decision-making, ensure operational efficiency, and expand results?
ATHROL offers customized solutions in logistics and transportation, mainly Agricultural Machinery and Construction lines, where decision-making depends directly on the truck’s geolocation in relation to the cargo, customer response time, and freight breakeven point. Another major challenge is ensuring accuracy in choosing the right vehicles and implements (such as Sider, 3 and 4-axle platforms, trailers, among others), in addition to meeting the special licensing requirements of vehicles, which vary by state, city, and even country. Currently, the allocation process is manual, which limits agility in cross-referencing all these factors. With around 1,500 transports carried out per month, the company needs to ensure the availability of the right vehicles in the right places, avoiding idle movements and optimizing costs. In this scenario, ATHROL seeks an Artificial Intelligence solution that can enhance team performance, automate analyses, and contribute to reducing pollutant emissions through fleet and route optimization.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS CHALLENGE
ATHROL’s operation involves multiple critical variables that require precision and agility. It is necessary to analyze customer demand, select the appropriate vehicle and implement (Sider, 3 and 4-axle platforms, trailers, among others), consider weight, axles, and special licensing by state, city, or country, in addition to complying with current legislation, especially the ANTT Freight Table. Added to this are freight negotiations with owned, affiliated, or third-party carriers, cost calculation, margin definition, and results forecasting.
The main challenge is to ensure the most efficient match between cargo, vehicle, and implement, balancing technical compatibility, fleet availability, route optimization, and profitability. The unavailability of the proper vehicle or the wrong choice can result in high costs, idle vehicles, unproductive movements, or even empty runs.
In this scenario, ATHROL seeks an innovative Artificial Intelligence-based solution capable of transforming its robust historical database into operational and strategic intelligence. The tool should automatically suggest the best match between cargo and fleet, considering location, route restrictions, license types, transport history, and negotiation margins.
As a result, the company expects to reduce vehicle idleness, automate demand analysis, improve result predictability, and free the team for more strategic decisions, boosting ATHROL’s competitiveness in the specialized road transport sector.
#SmartLogistics #RouteOptimization #FleetManagement #OperationalEfficiency #ArtificialIntelligence #PredictiveAnalytics #ERP #LogisticsPlanning #RoadTransport
02
How can Grupo Equatorial test new business models based on the free energy market, ensuring competitiveness and customer loyalty?
With the opening of the free energy market expected in 2028, consumers will be able to freely choose their energy operator, which poses a new challenge for companies in the electricity sector: retaining customers in a competitive environment. Grupo Equatorial seeks to anticipate this scenario by developing a proof of concept to support the creation of an innovative business model. The goal is to build a strategy that strengthens customer experience, reduces churn risks, and ensures competitiveness in a market with multiple energy operators.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS CHALLENGE
*CHALLENGE OPEN FOR STARTUPS AND SMEs
The transformation of the electricity sector with the opening of the free market represents a milestone for companies and consumers. Starting in 2028, customers will be able to choose their energy operator, making it essential for Grupo Equatorial to position itself with a differentiated value proposition.
The challenge is to develop and test, through a proof of concept, a new business model that brings together strategy, innovation, and customer experience. This approach must consider critical variables such as:
- Customer loyalty and engagement: models that encourage retention and trust.
- Education and transparency: supporting consumers in understanding the new contractual dynamics.
- Data security and management: ensuring reliability in services and shared billing.
- Scalability: solutions capable of serving customers across seven states, integrating marketing, regulation, customer service, and business.
- Cross-industry benchmarking: drawing inspiration from sectors such as telecommunications, which already operate with loyalty programs in competitive environments.
Equatorial believes this strategic movement must go beyond adaptation: it is about repositioning the company for the future, ensuring long-term relationships and sustaining its relevance in an increasingly dynamic market.
#BusinessModel #InnovationStrategy #FreeEnergyMarket #CustomerLoyalty #CustomerExperience #Churn #EnergyTransition #CustomerEducation #Scalability #ProofOfConcept
03
How can we automate Fruki’s metadata cataloging and optimization, ensuring consistency, accessibility, and information governance?
With Fruki Bebidas’ accelerated growth and the exponential increase in data volume, challenges in metadata management have emerged. Currently, the company handles more than 800 tables and up to 15 daily requests from different areas, making it difficult to ensure information consistency and accessibility. Many databases require constant intervention from the data team, resulting in rework and the risk of duplicate constructions. In addition, restricted access to data limits analysts’ autonomy and compromises decision-making efficiency. The challenge is to implement a technological solution that automates metadata cataloging and optimization, ensuring governance, accessibility, and data integrity.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS CHALLENGE
Fruki Bebidas is seeking a technological solution to automate the metadata cataloging of its Unity Catalog/Data Catalog environment in Databricks, with the goal of making a corporate online Data Book available. The expectation is that any employee can autonomously search and consult existing databases before contacting the data team, viewing descriptions, fields, and update frequency. Automations for metadata capture and automatic updates, centralization and cleansing of information, traceability and monitoring of null values, duplications, and last update timestamps are key differentiators.
With this initiative, Fruki Bebidas expects to reduce the time and effort required from the data team, increase business areas’ autonomy, improve efficiency in the use of information, and foster a data-driven and innovation-oriented culture across the company.
#DataManagement #Governance #Metadata #DataCatalog #DataOps #Automation #DataDriven #Databricks #AI #OperationalEfficiency #DigitalTransformation #BusinessIntelligence
DO YOU HAVE A STRATEGIC CHALLENGE AND WANT TO ATTRACT INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS?
Member companies can submit challenges and connect with startups.
ARE YOU A STARTUP LOOKING TO SOLVE REAL MARKET CHALLENGES?
Sign up to be the first to receive corporate challenges and connection opportunities.
DO YOU HAVE A STRATEGIC CHALLENGE AND WANT TO
ATTRACT INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS?
Member companies can submit challenges and connect with startups.
ARE YOU A STARTUP LOOKING TO SOLVE REAL
MARKET CHALLENGES?
Sign up to be the first to receive corporate challenges and connection opportunities.
