Four decades after being founded by five young workmates in Porto Alegre, Brazil, the company has become a leading name in SCADA software worldwide
It all began on September 15, 1986. This was the day when five colleagues, working in the automation department of a large corporation, decided to follow their dream of starting their own business and launched Controle Sistemas Industriais, a company specialized in custom industrial automation projects. The decision, made in the midst of a volatile political and economic climate in Brazil, which experienced periods of hyperinflation, was “risky, but also an act of obstinacy and audacity,” according to Ricardo Haetinger, one of the company’s founders and its current Chief Executive Officer.
Fortunately, Controle Sistemas Industriais landed its first contracts almost immediately, with clients like Siemens, Dana, and Springer. However, the turning point in the company’s history took place in 1991. That is when Controle, alongside a few business partners, developed and tested a supervisory software system called Elipse 21. The success of that product inspired the founding partners to pivot the business radically: it was the beginning of Elipse Software, a product-based software company built around Elipse 21.
The year 1991 also marks the company’s first appearance at a trade fair: it was Eletroeletrônica, in São Paulo, Brazil. The following year, the company expanded internationally for the first time at Hannover Fair, in Hannover, Germany; 1992 is also the year when Elipse Software opened its first Brazilian branch office, in São Paulo. In 1993, the company opened its first branch overseas, in Miami, Florida (since closed), where it sealed its very first deal with an American client, Lucas Deeco, in 1994. This feat solidified Elipse’s presence in the United States; the company also had representatives in India and Argentina.
The 1990s were a period of professional recognition by Sebrae, the Brazilian autonomous, non-profit service of support for micro and small enterprises: in that decade, Elipse Software won two top prizes from Sebrae, the Entrepreneurial Talents Award and the Editorial Award. In 1996, a new product, called Elipse Windows (currently Elipse SCADA), boosted the company’s sales in Brazil and abroad. The year 2001 saw the birth of Elipse E3, a robust SCADA platform aimed at larger applications which quickly won over high-profile clients such as Elektro.
In the 2000s, Elipse Software continued to expand rapidly, with two new branch offices in Brazil (Curitiba, in 2001, and Belo Horizonte, in 2008) and one in East Asia (Kaohsiung, Taiwan, in 2008). In 2009, the company introduced Elipse Power, another large-scale product for power sector automation, from substations to massive power plants.
In 2011, which marked the company’s 25th anniversary, Elipse Software opened an office in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which is currently its most recent Brazilian branch. In 2012, Elipse Software released yet another important platform: Elipse Plant Manager (EPM), a data historian aimed at information processing and analysis via a wide variety of charts and dashboards.
Over its 40-year history, the company has been awarded important prizes and certifications. Since 1999, the partnership with Microsoft has been renewed on a yearly basis, and in 2006 the company was awarded the Gold Certified Partner status, which it held for many years. The partnership with the OPC Foundation, also established in 1999, remains active to this day. In 2014, Elipse Software was featured as “Cool Vendor” by Gartner in its reports. And as recently as 2023, the company became part of the Google Cloud Partner Advantage program, making its products available at Google Marketplace.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the ability to monitor processes remotely, without requiring the staff’s physical presence at places like industrial plants or substations, became a huge asset to companies. In light of the worldwide social isolation situation, Elipse Software launched, in 2021, its e-learning platform. Today, more than 2,000 automation professionals have qualified in Elipse systems through this training platform.
The current decade is marked by the expansion of Elipse’s product portfolio. It now includes Elipse FlexControl DCS, the software for standardizing application development regardless of the controller vendor. Elipse Alarm Manager (ELAM) was developed to help reduce the number of alarms in industrial plants. Elipse Gateway streamlines data integration between Elipse E3/Elipse Power and Elipse Mobile, the mobile platform for automation system integration. Finally, Elipse DCIM has brought the company’s experience in infrastructure management to data centers.
In August 2024, in light of the new Brazilian sanitation regulatory framework requirements, the company launched Elipse Water, an evolution of Elipse E3 geared toward water supply and wastewater systems management. As of 2026, the platform operates in 34% of Brazilian municipalities in projects by Aegea Group and others.
To introduce its products to a broader market, Elipse Software has taken part in major national and international automation trade shows, such as ISA Show, Hannover Fair, Fenasucro (National Sugar and Ethanol Fair), Sendi (National Seminar of Electricity Distribution), and Fenasan (National Sanitation and Environment Fair).
More recently, the topic of artificial intelligence has gained ground in the company. In 2024, Elipse started using AI for searches in its Knowledgebase. In 2026, it released Elipse MCP Connector, an Elipse Cloud service that uses AI assistants such as Claude and ChatGPT, as well as other MCP-compatible models, to retrieve operational information from EPM. In the last decade, Elipse Software has also reaffirmed its role in developing new professionals for the automation field by partnering with major universities and technical schools such as PUCRS, UFRGS, USP, UFMG, and UNIFEI, among others.
At its 40th anniversary, Elipse Software remains headquartered in Porto Alegre, with four national branches in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, and Curitiba, and one international office in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. In 2025, Elipse Software Taiwan moved to a new, state-of-the-art office. As of 2026, there are more than 53,000 copies of Elipse systems installed worldwide, which demonstrates the high quality and performance of its products. The company has a dedicated team for developing communication interfaces, with a portfolio of over 500 connectivity-oriented drivers for a diverse range of equipment and systems.
In addition to long-standing customers like Petrobras, Elektro, and Sabesp, Elipse Software also serves companies such as CPFL, Enel Green Power, Engie, Light, Itaú, Motiva, Auren, Bunge, STIHL, TV Globo, Vale, and Taiwan Power Company, among others. This extensive and diverse list reflects the versatility of Elipse products when used for the automation of different types of processes and industries.
Voices from the team
Rubem Guimarães Netto Dias, Energy Group Coordinator, looks back on this journey with a sense of pride.
“Elipse Software’s 40-year history represents a path built on trust, innovation, and dedication to our customers and solution providers. I am beyond proud to have been a part of this story,” says Dias.
To Claudia Messias, Elipse’s Business Manager, the company has evolved from a SCADA software developer to a player that integrates a suite of platforms into an operational intelligence ecosystem. This evolution was the key to the success the company enjoys today.
“Currently, we are a benchmark in the Brazilian market, with technology that competes on equal terms with the state of the art of international solutions. I feel honored to have been a part of this journey, which was built on innovation, customer focus, and commitment to quality,” says Messias.
Evolution is also a key term pointed out by Gustavo Salomão, São Paulo Branch Manager.
“Across 40 years of leadership in automation, and more personally for the past 30, I have been able to bear witness to the evolution of our SCADA systems, building long-term partnerships and strong friendships,” says Salomão.
Alexandre Balestrin Correa, Head of Development, emphasizes the quality of Elipse Software’s products, a quality “built year after year through hard work and continuous learning,” according to him.
“For the past 40 years, we have learned how to develop and maintain sophisticated, robust world-class software for mission-critical industrial operations,” says Correa.
To Flávio Englert, Head of Technology, the software architecture’s high compatibility and flexibility are the standouts, because it means customers can update their software regardless of the version they run.
“To us, architecture, reliability, and compatibility are long-term decisions. This explains why Elipse E3, released in 2001, has been in production ever since, and keeps constantly evolving. A company that installed any of our systems 20 years ago can update them at any given time without needing to rebuild the whole application from scratch, and every new version of our products must be more reliable and efficient than the previous one,” says Englert.
Marcelo Salvador, Chief Business Officer, says that “four decades mean not only time, but cumulative purpose.” According to him, Elipse Software was founded on the belief that well-crafted software can transform industries, but none of this would make sense if the company ignored the importance of listening.
“What has been guiding us on that journey is our ability to listen to both our customers and solution providers and then turn the knowledge we gathered from them into actual features. The culture of proximity is our competitive edge over global players, and this very culture is what we strive to maintain and strengthen, cultivating a highly integrated and collaborative ecosystem,” says Salvador.
According to Rafael Farina, Elipse’s IT Manager, the three decades (and counting!) he has spent at Elipse Software don’t feel like a job, but like being part of a family.
“Throughout our history, I’ve brought together my home family and my work family, and in doing so, I’ve realized they’re one and the same. Each person, each life story, each accomplishment we’ve shared at work is a part of the whole we call Elipse Software,” says Farina.
To Ricardo Haetinger, Chief Executive Officer, keeping a Brazilian technology company relevant for four decades, going head-to-head with multinational corporate giants, and facing all kinds of economic and regulatory uncertainties that are unique to the Brazilian market, is a huge challenge, which is why this anniversary means so much to him.
“Elipse Software is living proof that it is possible to build an independent, trustworthy, and long-lasting 100% Brazilian technology company,” adds Haetinger.
