RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – PideDirecto, a Mexican local hyper delivery company, announced a US$5.25 million seed round led by JAM FUND, with participation from investors such as SOMA Capital and Y Combinator and a group of individual investors from companies such as Grubhub and Uber.
The capital received will be used to create a new technology team for future product features. PideDirecto is looking to expand its presence nationwide for the remainder of 2021, and wants to expand into new countries such as Colombia and Costa Rica by the end of next year.
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The rapid adoption of e-commerce by Mexican consumers forced thousands of businesses to look for alternatives to be where they wanted to be, and one of the most popular options was delivery apps, which became the winners during the corona virus.
In principle, this approach proved to be the most effective solution, but they had to accept that a large part of their profits ended up in the hands of the middleman, which inevitably forced them to increase the price of their products or earn less.
To provide an alternative to the high service fees charged by delivery apps, PideDirecto was launched.
PideDirecto is a startup that offers a new platform that allows local businesses to sell and deliver to their own customers without commissions, helping them stay independent of delivery apps.
The company was founded in September 2020 in Monterrey and the platform is already active in 6 cities in the country. To date, they have delivered around 200,000 deliveries per month and generated 100 million pesos in commission-free sales for their customers.
In the short term, they expect to expand internationally thanks to an investment from YC Combinator, which they received in March this year.
PideDirecto’s proposal is to develop its own online store, as well as the logistics of product deliveries, which should arrive in less than 30 minutes. In addition to avoiding commissions for third parties and maintaining good profit margins, companies also have the possibility to generate their own customer base by ordering directly from them.
On the other hand, any type of business can be included in this platform, from restaurants, pharmacies, bakeries to stationery and retail stores.