Rafael Donke Tenreiro, venture manager at BB Ventures, is one of our top 50 Rising Stars in corporate venturing for 2026.
Rafael Donke Tenreiro’s team members describe him as representing the next generation of corporate VC professionals – thoughtful, data-driven and purpose-orientated.
Tenreiro joined BB Ventures, the CVC arm of Banco do Brasil, in 2021, where he was working in investment banking, before being invited to join the CVC unit.
BB Ventures, set up in 2020, recently doubled the amount of capital to $94m and expanded the sectors in which it invests.
The CVC partners with five Brazilian VC funds which manage investments. Tenreiro evaluates the startups that the external fund managers present to the bank and delineates potential linkages with internal departments. The team has invested in 10 startups so far and plans to do more in the coming year.
“We are not only interested in startups that can reduce costs for us; we are looking at co-creating solutions using technology developed by the startups.”
The venturing team aims to collaborate with each startup it invests in through commercial partnerships, as well as co-creation projects. Last year, the unit launched a division that partners with entrepreneurs to build solutions with the invested startups. One of these co-creations is BB Expenses, an AI-enabled expense management software to automate corporate expenses with the bank’s credit cards, which it co-founded with startup Payfy.
“We are not only interested in startups that can reduce costs for us; we are looking at co-creating solutions using technology developed by the startups and the advantages that Banco do Brasil has as one of the larger banks in Latin America,” says Tenreiro.
The team has four investment areas: fintech, govtech, ESG and agritech. It also recently expanded into solutions in the bio-economy – parts of the economy that use renewable biological resources from the land and sea to produce food, healthcare, materials and energy.
Tenreiro enjoys meeting and talking to founders the most. “Every pitch I hear is a kind of masterclass – a different technology, a different market and a different proposition.”
The Rising Stars are early-career corporate venture professionals who are making an outstanding contribution to their teams and the industry.
See the full list of Rising Stars 2026 here.
