João Paulo Poiares B

João Paulo manages Burrill & Company’s Latin America operations. He graduated in Economy at Universidade de Coimbra， Portugal. He began his career as analyst for the Department of Economy Industry Services （SE） in Macau， which operated as the economic authority of the Territory. In 1986， after leaving public service as Sector Chief， he joined the consulting firm Asiatec Consultadoria. In 1987 he joined Pacific Infotech Corp （PIC）， an investment group with focus on technology-based companies， to serve as an analyst in Los Angeles， USA.

Between 1990 and 1992， as General Director of PIC in Europe， he expanded its business in Europe， from their headquarters in Lisbon， Portugal. In 1992， he developed extensive consulting activities for new businesses in the sectors of IT and telecommunications. In 1999 he founded MVP – Mercatto Venture Partners Ltda.， one of the pioneers in venture capital activities in Brazil. He actively participated on the development of Projeto INOVAR from FINEP （Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology）， being responsible for the Venture Fórum Brazil. Also under the auspices of Inovar， he created and developed the first forums in partnership with BOVESPA. In a consultant role to BOVESPA， João Paulo performed strategic analysis， and enabled positioning and preparation of companies for investor presentations under the development directives of the program BOVESPA Mais. João Paulo was also one of the founders of former ABCR – Brazilian Association of Venture Capital， currently ABVCap.

Prior to joining Burrill & Company， he served as a Director of Rio Bravo Venture Partners， created by the merger of MVP with the Venture Capital division of Rio Bravo Investimentos. He has served as the President of the Investment Committee of MVP TECH FUND since the beginning of its operations. João Paulo serves as board member of seven leading technology-based companies in Brazil.