4,500 signups for 380 seats: Vínculoo® on stage at the Claude Meetup São Paulo

The Claude Meetup São Paulo, an official Claude Community event supported by Anthropic, had 4,500 signups for 380 seats. Rafael Anselmo, founder and CEO of Vínculoo®, took the stage on July 15, 2026 to talk about the part almost nobody shows: the backstage.

He did not talk about the product. He talked about how the company works on the inside. Vínculoo® did not subscribe to ten off-the-shelf systems. It built its own: CRM, ERP, fundraising and finance, all custom made, all with AI running inside.

Why Vínculoo® built its own systems

The reason, according to the founder, is not a pretty one.

“It was not a technology strategy. It was a constraint.”

Small team. Hard market. Schools that cannot wait. Vínculoo® built because buying was not an option.

The cost did not fit

Off-the-shelf tools charge per seat and per module. Adding up CRM, ERP, a fundraising tool and a finance system, the monthly cost of running on market software did not fit the budget of a growing company in the education sector.

No ready-made system understands the public education cycle

Selling to a city government is different from selling to a company. The cycle runs through public tenders, legal deadlines, education departments and the school year. Following an entire school network across a full year has its own logic, and generic software does not model it.

So the team wrote its own.

What runs inside the operation

The CRM organizes the relationship with schools, networks and families. The ERP handles day to day operations. The fundraising system tracks public calls, deadlines and submissions. The finance system closes the loop.

AI is not sitting on top of this as an add-on. It is inside: it reads, classifies, summarizes and prepares. Repetitive work that would eat hours of a small team moves to the machine.

This is not about replacing people. It is about a small team being able to operate across more than ten Brazilian states without breaking.

The math that matters

When Vínculoo® started in 2019, almost nobody wanted to hear about special education and technology. It was niche, it was expensive, it was hard to scale.

“It is still hard. The difference is that now we have the tools to face it.”

And here is the point that matters. Every process the machine takes over is time given back. Back to the teacher in the classroom with a student who needs a different path to learn. Back to the coordinator who has to decide where to place support. Back to the network that needs to see what is happening before the school year ends.

“That is the math I care about.”

Where Vínculoo® is today

Vínculoo® is a Brazilian special and inclusive education platform, founded in 2019, serving private schools and public school networks from primary through secondary education. Current numbers:

• More than 356 schools
• More than 17,000 students
• More than 8,000 teachers
• Presence in more than 10 Brazilian states
• More than 2 million educational data points processed

Frequently asked questions

What is the Claude Meetup São Paulo?

It is an in-person Claude Community gathering in São Paulo, supported by Anthropic, bringing together people who build products and operations with AI. The edition where Vínculoo® presented had 4,500 signups for 380 seats.

Which internal systems did Vínculoo® build?

CRM, ERP, a fundraising system and a finance system. All developed in house, with AI integrated into each one.

Why would a small company build internal software instead of buying it?

In the case of Vínculoo®, because of cost and fit. Market tools charge per seat and per module, and none of them model the sales and follow-up cycle of Brazilian public education.

Does AI replace the teacher's work at Vínculoo®?

No. AI takes over administrative and repetitive processes to give time back to teachers, coordinators and network managers. Pedagogical decisions stay with the people inside the school.

About Vínculoo®

Vínculoo® is a Brazilian special and inclusive education platform. It helps schools and school networks understand, plan and follow the path of every student with a different way of learning, whether from autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia or any other condition that shapes how they process, express and take part in learning.