SEBRAE — Brazilian Micro & Small Business Support Service (Serviço Brasileiro de Apoio às Micro e Pequenas Empresas)

Administers SEBRAE as Brazil's small and medium enterprise support platform with innovation grants and advisory channels.

SEBRAE is Brazil's national small-business support institution, formally the Serviço Brasileiro de Apoio às Micro e Pequenas Empresas. It works through 27 state affiliates and roughly 500 service centers, serving MEI, ME, and EPP firms across the country.

Its support mix includes innovation grants, subsidized consultancy through Sebraetec, and credit guarantees, with direct cash awards limited to specific innovation calls. The named routes here are Edital Sebrae de Inovação / Prêmio Sebrae Startups, Sebraetec, and ALI, and the largest grant line in this file reaches BRL 120,000. Sebraetec and ALI matter because they give firms recurring advisory support even when a cash grant is not on the table.

SEBRAE was created in 1972 as CEBRAE and became an autonomous Sistema S institution in 1990, financed by a 0.3% compulsory payroll contribution. That structure makes it best understood as a nationwide SME support platform where grants are only one part of a broader advisory and credit-bridge model.