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The Paraná-based construction company Elevação invested R$ 90 million in its own fleet and doubled in size, closing 2025 with R$ 560 million in revenue. The strategy freed it from the equipment shortage that hinders the sector and placed it in a R$ 1.4 billion project linked to Sabesp, almost debt-free.
In 2023, a construction company from Paraná made a decision that went against the manual of most infrastructure companies: instead of renting drilling rigs and excavators as each project required, it bought its own machines, investing R$ 90 million in a fleet. Three years later, the bet showed in Elevação’s balance sheet, which doubled its revenue and closed 2025 with R$ 560 million in income.
The move not only boosted growth but also shielded the construction company from a problem that today hinders much of the sector: the shortage of equipment in a heated infrastructure market. With too many projects competing for the same resources, having its own fleet became a decisive competitive advantage. And the growth came with a rare achievement in the sector: the company closed the cycle practically debt-free, in a low-leverage model that contrasts with competitors who usually go into debt to grow quickly.
The history of the construction company that started in fiber optics
Elevação was born in Curitiba 50 years ago, but with a very different activity from today. The construction company started by installing fiber optic cables, and it was responsible for the first fiber connection between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The company was founded by engineer José Antônio da Fontoura, then director of the former Telepar, the telecommunications state company of Paraná before the sector changes.
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While Japan mines rare earths on the seabed and the United States digs in the desert, Brazil has one of the largest almost untouched reserves on the planet.
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From a bicycle shop in SC to the factory that popularized the cooktop in Brazil: Fischer invests R$ 20 million to modernize the unit that produces 200,000 items per month and aims for billion-dollar revenue after reaching R$ 670 million.
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Labor shortage: even with good salary, the profession faces a deficit of 530,000 workers in Brazil and helps explain one of the highest employability rates in the country.
Over the years, the company migrated to two main fronts: sanitation and oil and gas, leaving telephony behind, although it maintains the technical archive of the area. These two verticals operate in rotation, with one driving growth when the other slows down.
About eight years ago, the founder’s death accelerated the transition of command to the second generation, and today the controllers are three siblings, Marco, Andrea, and Ana Fontoura. Marco, a civil engineer with over 20 years in the company, took over the presidency after going through all areas, from the construction site to the board.
The R$ 90 million bet that avoided the bottleneck
Around 2023, Elevação identified growth potential in sanitation that was still unexplored and began to prepare on several fronts. Market professionals were brought in, the technology area was strengthened, and HR evolved from a simple personnel department to a talent attraction structure. But the most decisive move was another: heavily investing in their own machines.
Instead of relying on renting equipment such as heavy drills and excavators, the construction company invested R$ 90 million in their own fleet. This decision anticipated a problem that currently hampers the entire sector: the scarcity of machines in a heated market.
The result was a low leverage model, with the company closing the cycle with a net debt of only R$ 26 million, less than 5% of revenue. In a sector where rapid growth almost always means incurring debt, this number stands out.
How the partnership with Sabesp changed the game
The construction company’s relationship with Sabesp is long-standing, over 25 years, but it reached another level recently. According to Eduardo Feldmann, CFO of Elevação, the big turnaround was the change in control of the São Paulo company in mid-2024. From there, Sabesp announced an investment plan of R$ 70 billion for the coming years, and Elevação went deep into this line of opportunities.
Today there are five businesses with the company, including consortia, own projects, and even a less obvious model, where the construction company, together with partners, builds assets and leases them to the company. The project that Elevação handles alone is the sewage treatment plant in Ilhabela, but the largest contract is the retrofit of the Barueri station, conducted in consortium: R$ 1.4 billion, with completion expected by 2027. The station is part of a recovery project for the Tietê River and treats the sewage of about 11 million people from São Paulo, described by Feldmann as the largest sanitation project in Latin America.
The labor knot and how the company overcomes it
If the heated market brought opportunities, it also brought a significant challenge: the competition for qualified people. With many projects happening at the same time, the market is demanding, and finding skilled professionals has become the main bottleneck in the sector, according to the CFO of the construction company. It is a problem that affects practically all infrastructure companies at the moment.
Elevação has been overcoming this difficulty in two ways. The first is to maintain the continuity of projects, chaining contracts to avoid the need to dismiss and rehire for each project, utilizing personnel from one project when the previous one is ending.
The second is to train its own workforce: in an oil and gas project in the interior of Maranhão, the company helped to create, in partnership with Sesi and Senai, a school to train welders, bricklayers, and other professionals, who then move on qualified for new sites.
What lies ahead for the construction company
Elevação’s bet is that sanitation and oil and gas will sustain growth for the next five years, with little margin for error. Revenue has already doubled in the recent period, leading the company to R$ 560 million in 2025 and to the eighth position in the Brazilian Engineering Ranking. And the construction company did not grow only in the shadow of Sabesp: in oil and gas, it added three contracts that reach around R$ 800 million.
Looking ahead, the company closely monitors new movements in sanitation and keeps projects underway in the oil and gas sector for clients who need to invest to fulfill their contracts. Outside these two main fronts, the construction company is cautiously exploring other paths, having even evaluated energy transmission projects and partnerships before opting not to advance. As summarized by the CFO, the company remains always attentive to new opportunities, relying on its technical portfolio to face new challenges when the time comes.
What do you think of this construction company’s strategy of buying its own machinery instead of renting? Do you believe that investing in a fleet and growing almost debt-free is the smartest path in the infrastructure sector? And do you know other companies that have grown by riding large public investments? Leave your opinion in the comments and tag that friend who works in engineering and construction!
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