After more than three decades working across software, hardware, and telecommunications, Haroldo Jacobovicz arrived at a question that had been forming throughout his career: what would it take to bring quality digital performance within reach of the broadest possible audience? The answer, as he saw it, was Arlequim Technologies.

Founded in 2021, Arlequim Technologies emerged from a specific premise — that access to high-performance computing should not require the purchase of new equipment. The company’s core service involves boosting the performance of older or limited hardware through virtualization technology, making machines operate at a level comparable to current-generation devices. The target markets span three distinct segments: the corporate sector, public institutions, and retail consumers with a particular focus on gamers.

That last segment reflects a deliberate read of the Brazilian technology market. By 2024, nearly three-quarters of Brazilians were playing some form of online game, with women making up close to half of the country’s gaming population. Brazil’s gaming sector had also gained formal legislative recognition, with government support including tax incentives introduced to encourage industry growth. Against this backdrop, the performance demands of modern gaming — where latency tolerances are measured in milliseconds and hardware requirements continue to increase — made the case for virtualization-based solutions particularly relevant.

The appeal of gamification as a cultural force also sits within this context. As interactive entertainment becomes more technically demanding, the gap between what older hardware can deliver and what contemporary games require grows wider. Arlequim’s proposition speaks directly to this gap, offering a pathway to improved performance without the cost of new devices.

Haroldo Jacobovicz’s path to this venture was shaped by earlier experience across both the private and public sectors. After working for a multinational oil corporation and later advising at the Itaipu Hydroelectric Plant, he went on to build Minauro, a computer rental and maintenance business targeting public agencies. That company eventually expanded into software and became the foundation of the e-Governe Group, a technology solutions provider still operating across Brazilian municipalities today. Later, in 2010, he built Horizons Telecom from the ground up, developing it into a recognised name in Brazil’s corporate telecommunications market over the following decade.

Each of those experiences contributed to a working understanding of where infrastructure gaps exist and how technology services can be structured to address them at scale. The public sector work, in particular, introduced him early to the difficulty of justifying hardware expenditure within bureaucratic procurement systems — a problem that a rental and performance-enhancement model is well-positioned to address.

Arlequim Technologies applies a similar logic to a broader set of markets. Rather than treating hardware replacement as the default solution to performance limitations, the company treats existing equipment as a resource that can be extended. For Haroldo Jacobovicz, the practical outcome — better computing performance without new device costs — is also an expression of a longer-standing interest in reducing the barriers that separate people from functional digital access.