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Mercadoni<\/a>, a grocery delivery app and service operating in Colombia, Argentina and Mexico, has raised $6.2 million in Series A funding, one of the largest Series A rounds in the region.<\/p>\n The startup lets you order groceries for delivery, in a promised turn-around of under an hour. It already claims 250,000 users and \u2014 ready for this \u2014 says it\u2019s operationally profitable in the markets it operates in.<\/p>\n \u201cWe realised Colombians were spending 4 hours a week buying groceries in very chaotic cities such as Bogota, and we wanted to find a way to give those 4 hours back to people so they could do what\u2019s more important in their lives,\u201d Mercadoni co-founder Pedro Freire tells me. \u201cWe deliver their groceries in less than 1 hour, just like magic\u201d.<\/p>\n The company relies on more than 3,000 personal shoppers to deliver its orders in less than 1 hour, while the Mercadoni \u0301platform is deeply integrated with its more than 100 grocery retail partners, which include some of the largest retailers in the region such as Cencosud, Makro and Walmart.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s interesting that given the lower labor costs and the efficiencies we\u2019ve been able to generate, for the first time a grocery startup was able to raise its Series A while generating an operating profit and having 250,000 recurrent customers,\u201d adds Freire.<\/p>\n The key to this, I\u2019m told, is that Mercadoni chose early on to \u201cmicro-optimise\u201d the startup\u2019s algorithms, logistics processes, and app interfaces on which its logistic infrastructure runs \u2014 the tech promise of all the on-demand delivery companies, which, frankly, hasn\u2019t always translated into the kind of unit economics running a profitable company and investors demand.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Colombian grocery market alone is said to be $40 billion, most of which is concentrated in few densely populated cities. \u201cLatin-American cities often have safety issues and chaotic traffic \u2014 ranked among the worst in Waze\u2019s world traffic rank \u2014 which leads consumers to appreciate home-deliveries more than in other parts of the world,\u201d notes Mercadoni in its press release.<\/p>\n Leading the startup\u2019s Series A round are Axon Partners Group, and Grupo Pegasus. A number of unnamed high profile retail investors also joined the round.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com\/2017\/06\/mercadoni_shoppers2.jpg?w=680\")
Mercadoni, a grocery delivery app and service operating in Colombia, Argentina and Mexico, has raised $6.2 million in Series A funding, one of the largest Series A rounds in the region. Read More<\/a><\/p>\n\n<\/img><\/a>
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