Mobile commerce platform Movile and media and e-commerce group Naspers participated in a $500m funding round for Brazil-based online food delivery platform iFood yesterday, Forbes reported.
The corporates were joined in the round by private equity firm Innova Capital. Movile invested as iFood’s majority owner, having held a 60% stake following a round in 2015, while Naspers is one of Movile’s largest investors.
Founded in 2011, iFood runs an online platform that allows customers to order food from a network of more than 50,000 restaurants. It was responsible for the delivery of 10.8 million orders in Brazil last month and is averaging 390,000 a day.
The round took the company’s overall funding to more than $590m. Movile and online food ordering service JustEat had invested a combined $11.9m in iFood before adding $50m in the 2015 round and contributing to a $30m round the following year.
Fabricio Bloisi, founder and chief executive of Movile, said: “Movile is very fortunate to have long-term investors who have supported us for the past decade to help achieve our goal of transforming the lives of more than one billion people and thus we are able to continually back iFood to ensure it remains the market leader.
“Our entire ecosystem of companies is focused on allocating resources and energy towards our one billion people goal, and iFood is leading the way fueling unprecedented growth through its innovative technology platform, providing consumers, couriers and restaurants with the best experience in food ordering and delivery.”
The funding will go to the strengthening of iFood’s technology in areas such as artificial intelligence, data analytics and voice recognition, Bloisi told TechCrunch, adding that it is also considering strategic acquisitions.
