Brazil-based internet holding Movile raised USD200m in follow-on financing from Prosus Ventures to expand iFood (food delivery), MovilePay and Zoop (fintech) and Mensajeros Urbanos (logistics).
(Press Release) – Movile, one of Latin America’s leading and longest standing investors and growth accelerators for technology companies, has received a new investment from Prosus totaling BRL$ 1 billion (USD $200 million), the largest primary investment in a single round since Movile’s founding in 1998. Prosus, a global consumer internet group and one of the largest technology investors in the world, has been an investor since 2008 and is the majority shareholder of Movile.
The new funds will go towards expanding Movile’s current companies, including iFood, a leading foodtech company and one of the biggest tech success stories to date in Latin America; MovilePay and Zoop, two of Brazil’s leading fintechs; and Mensajeros Urbanos, a Colombia-based logistics company that is also growing fast in Mexico and other LatAm countries. Movile also plans to invest in new innovative tech startups in Brazil and across Latin America.
“Seeing the success of companies like iFood in Latin America has empowered so many new, innovative founders to rise up and join the burgeoning tech ecosystem in the region,” said Patrick Hruby, CEO of Movile. “Movile is committed to improving people’s lives in the region and beyond, and this includes supporting entrepreneurs, generating new jobs and bringing more practicality and convenience to consumers. With these new funds, we will continue to help quality founders to achieve their big ambitions to build the next success story in the region. ”
The Movile way of investing
Despite a challenging environment, in the last three years Movile has achieved an average annual revenue growth of 80 percent, and has carried out more than 30 deals in this period. This includes a follow-on funding round in Colombian delivery platform Mensajeros Urbanos in 2020, and an investment this year in Argentina’s Moova, expanding Movile’s presence in the Latin American market. More recently, Movile invested another BRL $ 170 million in Zoop, one of Movile’s fintech companies, as part of the new funding from Prosus.
“Movile’s successful track record is due to an innovative culture and business vision. They are a strategic investor with solid knowledge and expertise in the Latin American market, which brings a lot of value to people, culture, management, finance and performance. They collaborate closely with companies to ensure their success, which is a unique way of investing and similar to Prosus’s own approach,” said Roger Rabalais, CFO of Prosus Food and Movile Board Chair.
Next steps: strengthen Logistics, Fintech, and Gaming
Movile plans to continue investing in its current companies, in addition to expanding its portfolio, focusing on the logistics, fintech, and gaming verticals.
Throughout Latin America, online sales are soaring, with e-commerce sales having grown 36.7 percent in the region in 2020, resulting in the need for more and better logistics offerings. In Brazil alone, online sales increased 66 percent in 2020, more than double the rate of growth in the U.S., according to Euromonitor, and is expected to increase 56 percent by the year 2024, according to Worldpay by FIS. Based on this growth, Movile will continue investing in logistics.
Fintech has received the most investment in Latin America for the past six years per LAVCA, and will continue to be a core focus for Movile, having recently been established as a formal division within the company that includes MovilePay and Zoop. Recently, a joint initiative between the two launched the iFood Digital Account, developed by MovilePay and built with technology by Zoop. Since its launch in October 2020, MovilePay has already granted around BRL$ 200 million in credit to small restaurants registered on the iFood platform, with more than 150,000 active digital accounts.
“Fintech is a focus vertical for Movile today. In the not-too-distant future, we envision all companies will become a fintech and will be able to offer financial services to their customers. Zoop does exactly this for companies and MovilePay also enables this for restaurants,” said Hruby.
Movile also focuses on the gaming segment with PlayKids and Afterverse, the gaming brand born within PlayKids, which achieved impressive growth during the pandemic. Movile owns and operates the PK XD and Crafty Lands titles and reaches 50 million players per month, growing quickly into a major global gaming company with players in more than 180 countries.
“Afterverse began as a PlayKids innovation cell and achieved quick success, so it now operates independently. It has high potential to become one of the group’s major success stories,” said Hruby.
Looking ahead, Hruby reveals that Movile will continue to search for companies that complement and add value to the existing Movile ecosystem.
“We look for businesses that develop technology-based solutions with exponential growth potential. In addition, it is our mission to bring increasingly diverse talent to the teams at Movile,” concluded the CEO of the Movile Group, which already has 5,000 employees, with more than 600 job vacancies amongst its various companies.