Jade Autism wins PITCH at Web Summit Rio 2023

Meet your Web Summit Rio 2023 PITCH champion!

What have the 2006 FIFA World Cup, the 2016 UEFA European Championships and the Web Summit Rio 2023 PITCH competition got in common? Starring roles from somebody called ‘Ronaldo’.

At each of our events, PITCH brings together some of the world’s most promising early-stage startups for an electrifying live onstage battle. In the inaugural Web Summit Rio PITCH content, 42 hard-fighting startups entered the competition, but only one could win it. Meet Jade Autism and its founder, Ronaldo Cohin.

Jade Autism

Jade Autism is a novel gamified education platform that stimulates cognitive development for children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) and other learning disabilities. Established in 2018 in Vitoria, Brazil, the platform was built by a team of experts that includes neuroscientists, UX game designers and learning specialists.

The PITCH winner has also developed accompanying technology that tracks cognitive development while children play these games. This data is turned into prognostic and developmental reports for professionals. Teachers are in turn trained to use this data to take an individualized approach based on each child’s needs.

This was Ronaldo’s second time taking part in the competition, having previously presented at Web Summit’s flagship event in Lisbon last November. Second time’s the charm!

“PITCH is amazing, because I think it’s the most important part – it’s better than money. There are other competitions where you could earn bigger prizes, but it doesn’t have this size,” said Ronaldo.

“A lot of people are paying attention to those who speak at PITCH. Yesterday, I stayed up until 1am just replying to messages on my LinkedIn. My marketing team said Instagram is going crazy because a lot of people filmed yesterday and were tagging us on the polls,” added the founder.

The final

The final, held on Web Summit Rio’s Center Stage this afternoon, saw Jade Autism crowned as 2023 winner, with Jobecam and Wisecut finishing as runners up.

Wisecut is a video editing platform using AI to automate time-consuming aspects of the process – such as background noise cancelling – and Jobecam is a unique ‘blind video interview’ platform that reduces unconscious bias during the hiring process.

The three finalists pitched to Nuvini founder and CEO Pierre Schurmann, Kaszek partner Santiago Fossatti, and Kleiner Perkins VC scout Claire Diaz-Ortiz – all heavyweights in the investment and startup world.

974 startups – representing many industries and countries worldwide – joined us this year at Web Summit Rio for a chance to meet investors and learn from tech experts. Hundreds of these competed for the chance to take part in the PITCH competition. Out of these, 42 made it to the live-pitching group rounds.

To join the startups program at Web Summit Rio 2024, visit our startups page.

Main image of PITCH winner Ronaldo Cohin, CEO of Jade Autism, with the PITCH trophy at Center Stage during Day 3 of Web Summit Rio 2023: Sam Barnes/Web Summit (​​CC BY 2.0)