Vendor lineage
Sonda - the largest technology company in Latin America is Chilean
Chilean IT services multinational founded 1974, which became the largest provider in Brazil by buying thirteen companies.
SONDA - Sociedade Nacional de Processamento de Dados - was founded in Santiago in 1974 by Andres Navarro with his brothers and backing from Copec, starting with ten programmers. It is now the largest information technology services company in Latin America, present in ten countries, with around twenty-two thousand staff.
Its Brazilian story is the one this timeline needs, because it inverts the usual direction. Sonda arrived in the early 2000s, found organic growth slow, and bought its way in instead: more than three hundred million dollars on Brazilian companies in ten years, beginning with Imares in 2002 and running through Procwork in 2007 for US$118 million, then Telsinc, Softeam and Kaizen in 2010, Pars in 2012, CTIS in 2014 for R$400 million, and 60% of the data centre operator Ativas in 2016.
The CTIS purchase made it the largest information technology services provider in Brazil. So the biggest supplier in the Brazilian market is a Chilean company, assembled from Brazilian ones - and almost every account of this industry written in English describes Latin American technology as something that happens to the region rather than within it.
The names it bought stopped existing in January 2012, when Sonda Procwork, Sonda Software, Sonda Telsinc and Sonda Kaizen were unified as Sonda IT. That is the same erasure this timeline records for CPM Braxis and for Etek: the working knowledge continues under a single brand, and the histories become invisible unless somebody writes them down.
What it actually does is less glamorous than the acquisition arithmetic and more consequential: public-sector modernisation. Civil registry and public procurement systems in Chile, animal traceability in Uruguay, and traffic control in both Santiago and Sao Paulo. Systems that a citizen never chooses and cannot avoid.
- Sonda (Portuguese Wikipedia): SONDA, Sociedade Nacional de Processamento de Dados, founded 1974 by the industrial engineer Andres Navarro with his brothers and contributions from Copec, beginning with ten programmers and clients including Banco O’Higgins, Abastible and Iansa; involved in public-sector modernisation across Latin America including the Registro Civil and Chilecompra portal in Chile, animal traceability in Uruguay and traffic control systems in Santiago and Sao Paulo; acquired Procwork in Brazil in 2007, unified the Sonda Procwork, Sonda Software, Sonda Telsinc and Sonda Kaizen brands as Sonda IT in January 2012, bought CTIS in March 2014 and 60% of Ativas in August 2016
- Sonda S.A. (Wikipedia): Chilean multinational headquartered in Santiago, the largest information technology company in Latin America, founded 1974 in association with Copec; founder Andres Navarro Haeussler
- Exame, June 2012 - Sonda arrived in Brazil in the early 2000s, and after struggling with organic growth gained scale through acquisition: more than US$300 million spent on Brazilian companies in ten years, the principal one Procwork in 2007, which brought clients including Petrobras, Votorantim and Bradesco; the company added IT to its name in Brazil to avoid confusion with a supermarket group, and supplied the technology for the Arena Corinthians
- Startupi, May 2014 - Sonda completes the acquisition of CTIS Tecnologia for R$400 million after CADE approval, becoming the largest IT services provider in Brazil; founded 1974, direct presence in ten countries, 2013 revenue US$1.2 billion
- TTR Data, May 2018 - thirteen acquisitions since 2002, when it bought Imares in Brazil; Procwork June 2007 for US$118 million, Red Colombia 2008 for US$13.6 million, and in 2010 Telsinc US$38 million, Softeam US$8.5 million and Kaizen US$6.7 million in Brazil, NextiraOne US$29 million in Mexico and Ceitech US$6.3 million in Argentina; about 22,000 staff and 5,000 active clients, 2017 Latin American revenue US$1.368 billion