Clubbi, a Brazilian business-to-business resource for small grocery retailers, raised $ 4.5 million in seed capital to expand across the country.
The first remote business launched in 2020 as an online commerce resource for neighborhood markets and grocery stores – most have never shopped online before – to stock up on the products they need, with competitive prices and better customer service.
Co-founder João Macedo first had the vision for Clubbi when he was working as sales manager for Red Bull. He saw how fragmented and analog the retail business was, which made it difficult to reach a large retail base. In fact, suppliers still rely on door-to-door sales, he told TechCrunch.
“They depend on intermediaries, which makes it more complex and expensive to get to market,” he added. “I lived in India and it was fragmented there, but B2B marketplaces were doing well there.”
Last year he teamed up with Marcos Adler and Alexandre Farber to create a marketplace that connects suppliers like Kraft Heinz, Adria and Piraquê with markets.
Clubbi started in October 2020 with 24-hour delivery, no minimum order quantity and flexible payment terms. The company currently works with 1,000 grocery stores in Rio de Janeiro, from three at launch, with plans to grow to over 3,000 by mid-2022, Adler said. The company is also growing by 40% a month based on the gross value of the goods.
“We reach a long line of customers who are difficult to serve, have less working capital, and offer them a single place to buy everything they need and have a good lead time to meet inventory,” added Adler. “All you have to do is go to the website, place a one-click order and have it at your doorstep the next day.”
Valor Capital Group co-led the round with ONEVC and was supported by Better Tomorrow Ventures, Latitud and Canary, who led the club up to $ 550,000 pre-seed round.
The funding will be used to accelerate growth, technology development, expansion into other Brazilian cities and to establish additional supplier partnerships. Clubbi has around 7,000 to 8,000 SKUs in its marketplace, while the average store will have 1,000 to 2,000 SKUs, Adler said. The company started with five employees and plans to hire additional staff by mid-2022 in order to increase the current workforce of 40 to 70.
In the meantime, the company still has a long way to go to reach more than 200,000 corner grocery stores in Brazil, which together have sales of more than $ 35 billion, Antoine Colaço of Valor Capital Group said in a written Explanation.
“These businesses still face many challenges when it comes to procuring goods efficiently and cheaply, and they also have no access to fair financing solutions,” said Colaço. “Clubbi offers these shops an integrated and easy way to get the best products – at the right prices and payment terms – on their doors. The social and economic development that Clubbi generates is enormous and the first results of the company are very promising and impressive. “
