Photo by Inventa
Inventa, the platform that offers small businesses a simple way to buy inventory through technology, data and credit, raised a US$20 million Series A round. It was led by Andreessen Horowitz and Monashees.
Also participating in the round were Founders Fund, Greenoaks, Greylock, Tiger Global and angel investors such as Hans Tung and Carlos Garcia Otatti of Kavak, as well as Pear VC, NXT, ONEVC, MAYA Capital and Alter Global.
The new investment comes almost three months after its US$5.5 million seed raise, bringing it to around US$25.5 million, according to Crunchbase.
Inventa’s Market Opportunity
The Brazilian company was founded by Marcos Salama, former Rappi executive in charge of the supermarkets unit; Fernando Carrasco, Data Science expert at McKinsey; and Laura Camargo, former investor at General Atlantic and VP of Finance at Gympass.
Inventa has attracted the attention of investors with its business model: to facilitate the inventory purchasing process for small businesses. Through its platform, it recommends products and provides credit. This is all based on the business’ purchase history data. In addition, it allows suppliers to upload products, manage prices and see what sells and what doesn’t.
According to information shared by Inventa, its market opportunity in Brazil is “immense”. The country has 5 million small and medium-sized merchants.
The CEO, Marcos Salama, said that small businesses continue to buy inventory the same way they did years ago: sales representatives visit owners and conduct offline transactions.
This old model involves a lot more working capital and makes it difficult for suppliers to reach retailers.
“We believe that if today’s small businesses are forced to sell online, they will also make the progression to online shopping. We want to lead this shift to empower independent retailers,” Salama said.
The new funds came to Inventa at a time of expansion, say its executives, as the company is growing at 100% per month. It currently offers more than 7,000 products from 400 brands through its platform, and serves more than 20,000 store owners in Brazil.
So far, Inventa has a team of more than 100 people, most of whom are in the engineering area. The recent upheaval will focus on strengthening its technology, marketing and sales teams.
In this way, the company aims to expand its team by 2022, reach 10,000 brands that sell on its platform and multiply the number of customers that use Inventa.
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