Rosario Cannata

Rosario Cannata is a Principal at EDP Ventures, the corporate venture-capital arm of EDP (Energias de Portugal), one of the world's largest renewable-energy utilities. A native of Sicily, Italy, he studied economics at Bocconi University in Milan, then worked across Venezuela and the Dominican Republic before taking an analyst role at the Chicago Investment Group in New York. He relocated to Brazil in 2010 to work for the oil-and-gas company Schahin Petróleo e Gás and has been based in the country ever since.

Cannata began his career in project finance and mergers & acquisitions for multinational energy companies operating across the US and Latin America. Brazil's 2015 financial crisis prompted his pivot into venture capital: observing that startups were reaching unicorn status while established corporates struggled to raise capital, he began engaging directly with entrepreneurs and made his first startup investment. In 2018 he became the first investor in Delfos Intelligent Maintenance, a company applying AI to energy-asset maintenance.

At EDP Ventures he leads the São Paulo–based investment vehicle, responsible for sourcing and executing deals across Latin America. He participated in the full setup of the local vehicle — defining strategy and running the approval process — and today sits as a board member or board observer on several portfolio companies. He was recognized as one of Global Corporate Venturing's Top 50 "Emerging Leaders" in 2022.

• Invests at seed and Series A, with checks roughly $570K–$2.3M (sweet spot ~$1.2M), concentrated in ClimateTech/CleanTech and EnergyTech.
• Runs a top-down thesis anchored to EDP's corporate goals: enabling a renewable-energy future through efficiency, new methods of energy production, and green hydrogen — while staying agile and recalibrating the thesis as markets shift.
• Believes in "real smart money" — providing capital *and* strategic guidance without taking operational control, and adding unique value beyond the check. He argues good investors should have angel-investing experience of their own.
• Bullish on Brazil and Latin America: a market of 200M+ people, young and highly tech-adoptive, which he sees as especially fertile ground (he points to the post-2015 rise of fintech unicorns as evidence of the ecosystem's maturation).