Renan Duarte

Renan Duarte

Berlin, DE

renanrodriguesduarte

duarte.io

rrduarte gmail

LinkTree

CTO and Technology Enthusiast

A highly proficient and technical CTO, deeply passionate about Software, Hardware, and Technology, adept at building companies and teams, residing in Berlin, Germany 🇩🇪, and actively engaged in software engineering since 2002. I’ve had a deep and long-standing passion for technology, whether it’s assembling computers 🪛, writing scripts, developing automation, from basic to advanced, or cloud architecting large+complex systems.

Around the age of 10, I took my first computer assembly course, which quickly led me to explore and pursue programming courses (HTML, CSS, VB, ASP, Macromedia Flash, etc). I soon dived into developing MS Windows applications and web development. My professional journey began at the age of 15 when I developed my first e-commerce platform. That early exposure ignited a lifelong passion for technology. 🤓

Fast forward a few years... ⏩️ ⏩️

After 7 years at a major investment bank working on trading robots and low-latency platforms, I decided to leave the Treasury Desk / FICC area. Following an online meeting with my 2 future co-founders, I relocated to Germany in 2018 to co-found AiSight GmbH. As CTO, I helped scale AiSight into a mid-sized company (+100), which was successfully acquired by Sensirion AG 🇨🇭 in 09.2021. 🚀 😊

Throughout my career, I have continuously deepened my expertise across diverse fields and areas, reflecting my commitment to ongoing learning and exploration. During the last 20 years I've lived in several cities like São Paulo (10y), Mexico City (6m), Jaipur-Delhi/India (11m), Zürich (3m), London (3m), Shenzhen/China (3m), Santiago-Pucón/Chile (2m), Hamburg (1m), Berlin (since 01.2019) and traveled to 40+ countries. I spent weeks traveling with my family in a motorhome, driving through Denmark 🇩🇰, Sweden 🇸🇪, Norway 🇳🇴, Belgium 🇧🇪, and Germany 🇩🇪. :)

I'm curious and always open to new ideas, cultures, and experiences. I love exploring, learning, and diving into new things. 👋🏻 😊

  • Angel Investor
    04.2024 - Current
    Wirbee Ventures
    About: Berlin-based early stage investor for hard and deep tech startups working on sustainability across climate, IoT and human health.
    Extra(s):
    None

  • Co-Founder & CTO
    10.2018 - 06.2024
    AiSight GmbH
    (acquired by Sensirion Holding AG / SWX:SENS)
    About: AiSight produces a plug-and-play hardware and software solution that uses machine usage data to predict and prevent machine failures. Based on vibration, magnetic field and temperature sensors as well as artificial intelligence data analysis, AiSight’s technology enables manufacturing companies to avoid unplanned machine downtime, optimize maintenance and improve asset efficiency.
    Background: I founded AiSight in October 2018, with two co-founders, and we experienced significant growth, becoming quickly a mid-size company with 50-100 employees. In September 2021, AiSight was successfully acquired by Sensirion AG (SWX: SENS). Since the beginning, I have led our entire R&D team with diverse skill sets in hardware, cloud, software, and data science, showcasing the company's multidisciplinary needs and efforts. Additionally, our recent achievements include successfully obtaining ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 certifications, underscoring our commitment to high standards in information security and quality management.
    Extra(s):
    ¹ Sensirion Connected Solutions: AiSight - Brochure  (09.2023)
    english
    ² AiSight - Brochure  (09.2022)
    english
    deutsch
    ³ Sensirion acquires machine diagnostics start-up AiSight  (09.2021)
    english
    deutsch
    ⁴ "Der Mittelstand" / 104.  (02.2021)
    deutsch
    ⁵ "Die Zeit" / № 46.  (11.2020)
    deutsch
    ⁶ ISO / IEC 27001:2013  (02.2024)
    english

  • Fractional CTO
    08.2020 - 06.2023
    ADA Tecnologia & Educação S.A.
    About: Ada is a tech-enabled education company in Brazil. The platform is addressing the skills shortage in technology by offering talent sourcing, people development, and skill mapping for businesses. It is cost-free for students and effective for companies, with a 96% completion rate.
    Background:
    I started my journey with Let's Code, an EdTech young startup focused on B2C students, as their Fractional CTO, guiding and mentoring an initial team of two developers. Over time, Let's Code transitioned and pivot into ADA, targeting B2B companies, instead. My role expanded as I guided a growing team of developers to deliver enterprise-grade learning applications. This experience was transformative, highlighting the importance of adaptability and strategic vision in tech leadership. I was able to lead and successfully transform an initially highly manual technology landscape into a sophisticated environment characterized by automated infrastructure provisioning, deployments, comprehensive testing automation and very lean cloud setup, with of course the adoption of the latest technology stack. As the company grew rapidly, it became evident that there was a critical need for a full-time Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to provide dedicated strategic leadership and oversight. Recognizing this essential requirement, I made the decision to transition out.
    Extra(s):
    ¹ ADA - Pitch  (02.2024)
    portuguese

  • Data Engineer Architect
    04.2018 - 12.2019
    Olivia Inc.
    (acquired by Nubank Inc / NYSE: NU)
    About: Olivia AI is a developer of an artificial intelligence-based financial assistant application. The company's application helps users to manage and optimise personal finance and spending using artificial intelligence and behavioral economics on their smartphones.
    Background: I was part of the initial rounds of brainstormings and discussions (2014/2015) for founding the company. Later, I participated as a consultant in the design and architecture of the initial multi-bank data integration and data processing landscape.
    Extra(s):
    ¹ Olivia Inc. acquired by Nubank Inc.  (01.2022)
    english

  • Associate Director
    08.2012 - 04.2018
    BTG Pactual S.A.
    (BVMF: BPAC11)
    About: BTG Pactual is a Brazilian financial company that operates in the markets of Investment banking, Wealth management, Asset management, Corporate lending and Sales and trading. It's the biggest investment bank in Latin America and the Caribbean.
    Background: I joined BTG Pactual in 2012 in the software development area and in the IT team. In a rather unusual move, after considering the development of trading robots and algorithms during my previous years, in 2014 I was invited to join the bank's treasury desk, specifically in the foreign exchange (FX) and fixed income (FI) teams, where I had the opportunity to evolve and learn to work in an extremely challenging and agile environment. I spent around 4 years optimizing processes, creating new products, exploring new forms of revenue for the area (FICC Macro) and developing highly critical low-latency trading robots and algorithms. Genetic algorithms for dynamic generation and forecasting of yield curves (the term structure of interest rates) were also my major focus of research and interest during this period.
    Extra(s):
    ¹ Renan was awarded as one of top 50 (out of 3,000) "Excellent Employees"  (2013/2014)