A GCV Rising Star nominee for the third year in a row, Arthur O’Keefe joined São Paulo, Brazil-based global mobile commerce company Movile five years ago, and is currently partner and group chief financial officer (CFO) overseeing corporate development and strategy for the group that has raised more than $250m itself from a syndicate led by corporate venture capital group Naspers Ventures.
Since joining, O’Keefe led the deal team for Cinepaya, a Peru-based online movie tickets platform that marked Movile’s first exit when it was acquired by a consortium of investors including Fandango, NBC Universal and Comast last year.
He also contributed to the unit’s very first investment in 2013 in food ordering platform iFood. Movile led four rounds for the startup between 2013 and 2016, having helped it raise nearly $85m in total. In 2016, it became iFood’s majority owner with a 60% stake before Naspers and investment fund Innova Capital led an $82m round in Movile last month. At the time, Naspers, which has backed Movile since 2008, said: “The new capital will be used to further expand all of Movile’s businesses, and a large portion will be used to increase Movile’s participation in iFood, the leader in food delivery in Latin America.”
Nowadays, iFood delivers around 6.2 million monthly orders as at October 2017, compared with 25,000 when Movile first invested. Commenting on the company’s evolution, O’Keefe previously said: “The learnings and data from this process were critical in the decision-making process to invest behind other great businesses.”
Movile is a leading investor in mobile marketplaces in Latin America, covering food delivery, ticketing, subscription content and local / cloud logistics and with more than 50 million people per month using various Movile-backed companies, including iFood, Sympla, PlayKids, Maplink and Rapiddo.
The CFO contributed to the unit’s multiple funding rounds for delivery business Rapiddo, to the controlled acquisition of geolocation platforms Maplink and Apontador, as well as to other disclosed and undisclosed deals.
Speaking to GCV about O’Keefe’s nomination last year, Movile’s chief executive Farbricio Bloisi said: “Movile’s growth and innovation strategy has bet highly on corporate venture to accelerate our entrance in new business, new markets and to experiment with technology innovations.
“Arthur is in charge of mergers and acquisitions in Movile and he has been responsible for 15 investment deals in the years 2015-16. Those deals have contributed substantially to our growth in net revenue of more than 100 times in the past five years.”
The unit has so far invested more than $270m, aiming to build and grow new and innovative businesses in mobile commerce, including on-demand content and online-to-offline services. It has previously targeted the segments of food delivery, children’s education, entertainment, ticketing, logistics and groceries.
Other portfolio companies in those segments include Mensajeros Urbanos, Rapiddo Delivery, Optilogistic Acquisition, Sympla, PlayKids, Cheftime and Maplink.
A driving force behind Movile’s M&A and strategic venture capital program, O’Keefe has extensive experience in corporate development, technology and mobile, M&A, financial management and business strategy.
Thinking of his and Movile’s future, he said: “We look forward across the next year to continue to bring businesses together across the region and beyond to build a global tech leader and to help our customers live better.”
Looking back at the unit’s progression, he proudly said that their model has been so successful that several businesses are now replicating their CVC model, including portfolio company iFood, which has been involved in more than 10 mergers since Movile’s entry.
He told GCV last year: “About four years ago I wanted to test my limits and jumped into technology, which led to CVC at Movile and has been the best choice of my career.
“When I started here, we were a regional company largely known in mobile content; today, we are the leader in mobile commerce in Latin America.
“Many of our portfolio companies have become leaders in their own field – including PlayKid, which is now a global business in kids’ entertainment and is still growing – and the next challenge is to facilitate more of our investees in going global.”
After graduating from the George Washington University with a degree in computer engineering, O’Keefe began his career in the US Navy, where he served as lieutenant on the USS Georgia and “ran an 18,000 ton submarine and operated a small nuclear reactor” for five years.
After leaving the navy in 2002, he undertook his MBA at Harvard Business School, where he graduated as a George F Baker Scholar. Later, O’Keefe became a trader on Wall Street at what was then Credit Suisse First Boston.
He then moved to become a chief financial officer and chief operating officer in various investment companies in Brazil, India and the US, including shopping club Coquelux, before ending up at Movile, where he has since taken up portfolio board roles at Better Brand, Apontador, MapLink and iFood, among others.
O’Keefe devotes whatever spare time he can get to his family, being the proud father of a six-year-old son and a four-year-old daughter.