With its Rappido subsidiary looking to become a marketplace for all sorts of online and delivery services, Movile is moving further along in its mission to become the Tencent of Latin America.
Given its backing by Naspers (a large shareholder in Tencent — one of China’s e-commerce giants), the move to replicate a business model that’s worked so well for the investor already isn’t that surprising.
Indeed, Naspers just committed an additional $53 million to Movile (along with Innova Capital) so that the Brazilian company could continue to expand its services suite in Latin America.
So far, things seem to be working. Movile has a compound annual growth rate of 60 percent over the last eight years (a pretty astonishing number if you can believe the company’s books).
The $53 million that Movile received isn’t just for the company’s Rappido business line. It’ll be used to expand the company’s food delivery, ticketing and gaming businesses, as well.
Naspers committed $30 million of the $53 million round, with an additional $23 million coming from Innova Capital in a series of commitments over the last few months.
Similar in scope to what Tencent has done with WeChat in China and what Line has done in Korea (or what Alphabet has done in India with Areo), Rappido is hoping to launch its marketplace allowing folks to order tickets, top up their minutes and get food or groceries through a single messaging point of access.
It’s a big idea for e-commerce, and one that doesn’t really have a corollary in the U.S. yet (Facebook Messenger is trying).