Rappi becomes the newest Unicorn of Latin America

São Paulo – the Colombian delivery startup Rappi has just become the newest Unicorn from Latin America. With a new investment of 200 million dollars (at current exchange rate, about 826 million reals), the Rappi has been evaluated in more than one billion dollars, according to the TechCrunch vehicle. The startup mentioned that shall decide on the matter. The supply was led by the DST Global, the same that made several investments in the Unicorn also Nubank. Other investors are the Andreessen Horowitz Fund and Sequoia, which had already landed in Rappi. In all, the Rappi has received $392 million in investment (1.62 billion dollars). The deal came to Brazil in August last year. Some of his customers are the gastronomic Centre Eataly, the network of coffee shops Starbucks and the supermarket Pão de Açúcar. The startup hopes to expand your coverage from five to 15 cities this year, according to previous interview. Business model the Rappi proposal is to deliver supermarket products to remedies through petshops and restaurants. It is possible to withdraw money, a concept called hiperconveniência. By the application, customers can choose a number of accredited establishments and buy any product for the price, plus the value of the freight. Within a radius of three kilometers, the delivery costs six Reals and 90 cents and will fully to the delivery man. Participating companies pay a percentage of sales to Rappi, on a model similar to the delivery of application food iFood. The rate depends on the type of product. If the product is not part of the registered list, you can indicate where the delivery guy can find it and what the desired commodity in a specific field for this. In this case, the client pays a fee of 14% on the value of the application-limited to 25 reais, more six freight and 90. Is it possible to make a monthly subscription, referred to as Rappi Prime, which costs 38 reais and entitles you to unlimited free freight and decreases the charge on the value of products registered for 9%. The historic founding members Felipe Villamarin, Colombians Sebastian Mejia and Simón Borrero had the idea for another company, Rappi while played in the field of e-commerce solutions for supermarkets. For entrepreneurs, the big bottleneck in time to buy food over the internet was not just the experience on platforms, but the delivery of the products with quality and speed. So, the partners decided to test an own logistics structure, with four carriers of the company. Such experiment turned startup Rappi, with the promise of delivering the products to the end customer in up to 1 hour. In six months of operation, 200,000 people registered only in the Colombian city of Bogota. Transformation trend of Rappi in Unicorn is the latest indicator of a trend of larger investments in startups of Latin America. According to LAVCA (Latin American Private Equity & Venture Capital Association), supply contracts in the region exceeded 1 billion dollars for the first time in 2017, twice seen in 2016. Were 249 agreements, against 197 in 2016. The past year was also marked by the entry of large funds in Latin America, like the SoftBank. The value obtained by Rappi, of 200 million dollars, equates to 2017 – other record 200 million dollars invested in brazilian 99, which would announce have turned a Unicorn at the beginning of 2018. Given these trends, the startups of Latin America do not even want to know.