Social commerce platform Favo raises $26,5M

Favo, a Brazilian social commerce platform, has raised a $26,5 million Series A financing round led by Tiger Global. Other investors involved in the deal are GFC, Elevar Equity, FJ Labs, H20 Capital, Kevin Efrusy and David Velez, founder and CEO of Brazilian unicorn Nubank.

Favo was created in 2019 to provide an opportunity for entrepreneurs that want to have their own businesses. With this platform, “Favo entrepreneurs”, as they are called, get their own virtual storefront to sell supermarket products to their neighbors, family, or friends.

This model is known as community group buying –a micro-location-based e-commerce model in which entrepreneurial partners make purchases through social media

Favo seeks to change the way in which Latin American families buy in grocery stores and supermarkets. The platform is already considered a source of income for more than 3,000 partners, or citizens who become entrepreneurs through this digital effort.

The rise of s-commerce

Any type of financial transaction that happens within a social media platform is considered to be within the social commerce, or s-commerce, category.

This trend has been growing drastically in the past years due to the increase of time people spend on social media: from 56.23 minutes in 2019 to 65.44 minutes in 2020, according to Business Insider.

Online retail sales are particularly promising. According to data from marketer, online retail sales in LatAm grew by 63,3% in 2020, reaching over $104 billion.

One of the first examples in LatAm is Elenas, the first social commerce market in the region leveraging on the rapid growth of this trend, driven by its potentially viral marketing strategy and the existing scope of social platforms.