# Paulo Martins

> Paulo Martins is the Brazilian-born founder and CEO of Arena (arena.im), a San Francisco-based AI-powered community engagement platform that lets brands embed live chat, live blogs, and audience interaction tools directly on their own websites with a single line of code. After stints at NASA, Ubisoft, and Hulu — where he helped grow the streaming company from 100K to 7 million paying subscribers — Martins founded Arena in 2017 with a clear thesis: businesses should own their audience, not rent it from social platforms. By 2022, Arena had grown to 25,000 customers across 150 countries and closed a $13.6M Series A led by CRV, with backing from heavyweights like David Sacks, Des Traynor, and Olivier Pomel.

- **Role:** Founder & CEO at Arena
- **Organizations:** Arena (arena.im), Hulu, Ubisoft Entertainment, NASA Johnson Space Center
- **From:** Minas Gerais, Brazil
- **Nationality:** Brazilian
- **Education:** Bachelor's in Computer Science, Universidade Federal de Uberlândia (UFU), Master's in Computer Science / Data Mining and Machine Learning, Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon (INSA Lyon), Computer Science coursework, University of Houston
- **Known for:** Grew Arena to 25,000 customers across 150+ countries, largely through viral product-led growth with zero marketing spend, Raised $13.6M Series A (March 2022) led by CRV with marquee angel investors including David Sacks (Yammer/PayPal), Des Traynor (Intercom), and Olivier Pomel (Datadog), At Hulu, contributed to growing the company from 100K to 7M paying subscribers and revenue to $1.1B within roughly two years

## Career timeline

- **2008** — Software Engineer / AI Algorithms Developer at NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston
- **2009-2011** — Data Engineer at Ubisoft Entertainment, working across Montreal, Paris, and Bucharest; helped ship titles exceeding 25M units on Wii, PS3, Xbox 360
- **2011** — Relocated to the United States full-time
- **2012-2014** — Ad Products team at Hulu; helped grow company from 100K to 7M paying subscribers and revenue from early-stage to $1.1B annually; led Super Bowl and Oscars ad campaigns generating $80M+ per year
- **2016** — Left Hulu to pursue entrepreneurship full-time in San Francisco
- **2017** — Founded Arena (originally Stationfy Inc.) with co-founder Rodrigo de Castro Reis
- **2020** — Raised $2.3M seed round led by Redpoint Ventures
- **2022-03** — Closed $13.6M Series A led by CRV, with Craft Ventures, Artisanal Ventures, Vela Partners, David Sacks, Des Traynor, Olivier Pomel
- **2022** — Arena reached 25,000 customers in 150 countries; added three new executives to fuel growth

## Achievements

- Grew Arena to 25,000 customers across 150+ countries, largely through viral product-led growth with zero marketing spend
- Raised $13.6M Series A (March 2022) led by CRV with marquee angel investors including David Sacks (Yammer/PayPal), Des Traynor (Intercom), and Olivier Pomel (Datadog)
- At Hulu, contributed to growing the company from 100K to 7M paying subscribers and revenue to $1.1B within roughly two years
- Positioned Arena as the #1 Low-Code choice for Live Chat and Live Blog
- Customers report 64% increases in engagement and 5x more first-party data with Arena
- Achieved 76 Net Promoter Score (NPS) with Arena's product
- Built a multilingual team (Paulo speaks French, English, Portuguese, and Spanish) with diversity described as 'the default' in the company's DNA
- Clients include Vans, Adobe, Meta, Microsoft, Figma, and Samsung
- Launched program to hire 55 Brazilian developers, offering relocation sponsorship or remote work and US business scaling training

## Latest updates

- **2022-09** — Arena added three new senior executives (VP Marketing, VP Sales, Chief of Staff) to accelerate growth in live engagement and first-party data
- **2022-03** — Closed $13.6M Series A led by CRV; Arena at 25,000 customers across 150 countries
- **2022-03** — Announced plan to hire 55 Brazilian developers with relocation sponsorship, bridging Silicon Valley and Brazil

## Links

- Website: https://arena.im
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pauloxm
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/PauloMrt
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMEl2poSkNw
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pauloxm/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stationfy

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/paulo-martins
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-24