Communicating safely and practically is something that interests everyone, from government agencies and big banks to small businesses and communities. That's the concept behind Rocket.Chat, an open source communication platform that began in Brazil in 2015 and now has over 12 million users in 150 countries.

Besides being highly customizable, Rocket.Chat offers two server options: you can use their cloud or run it on your own server. It's that unique data protection layer that has attracted the likes of the US Department of Defense and the US Navy, besides the 30,000 new companies that become customers every month.

Back in February 2021, Rocket.Chat raised a US$ 19 million Series A round. It remains based in Porto Alegre, a city in the south of Brazil where the co-founder and CEO Gabriel Engel was born, and it's still very much an open source project at heart.

Stick around to find out:

Why Gabriel chose Brazil as the headquarters for a global business
The challenges and opportunities of an open source company
The importance of keeping the community engaged to make the product better

Building good sh*t in Latin America?

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#98 - Building global from the beginning: Gabriel Engel, Rocket.chat