Contxto – BUREA, a Boricua mobile analytics platform, recently landed a US$2 million Series A round from a majority of fellow Puerto Rican investors.
In Summary
BUREA is a free mobile app helping consumers earn cashback on daily purchases. The mobile platform also gauges client engagement and offline sale analytics.
Using machine learning algorithms, BUREA’s consumer-based platform follows users’ transactions, everything from the grocery store to the bakery. Once shoppers upload receipts to the app, the program then analyzes the data. This way, it can predict, personalize and influence future offline purchases.
For one of the co-founders, Vivian Vargas, the amount of local money raised in a single round is a huge milestone in the Puerto Rican entrepreneurial ecosystem.
“For us, it is an honor that we can reach this level and do it right here in Puerto Rico because 90 percent of the funds are from here,” said Vargas.
New funds will assist BUREA in expanding to Mexico where its strategic partner, the Beex Firm, operates. The group specializing in big data solutions contributed around nine percent of the total funds.
Other leading contributions came from Independent Capital led by Antoine de Marsily and Expresión 2020 led by Eugenio J. Torres Oyola.
In-Depth
Beginning in 2015, BUREA provides intelligent solutions at various points of sale, including inventory tracking and facial recognition features. The platform also offers discounts and cash rewards for consumer loyalty.
“The great value we give brands is to be able to have visibility of the entire retail industry,” said Stefan Maganto, CEO of BUREA. “We have the tracking and aggregation of data.”
According to reports, funds will also assist in expanding the team. This is paramount since the tech startup is preparing to increase user capacity before landing in Mexico.
“Today we are 26 employees, six of whom are from Mexico,” said Vargas. “By the end of the year, we project that we’ll be 42; 26 in Puerto Rico and 16 in Mexico.”
BUREA will also need to invest in new technological equipment to ensure a proper upgrade.
“We are making a lot of progress in machine learning and computer vision to automate processes and prioritizing scaling our services and infrastructure that run on the cloud,” said Manual Ortiz, CTO of BUREA.
Considering that BUREA intends to expand to Mexico where there are over 20 million inhabitants in the capital alone, higher operational capacities seem crucial.
“This is a challenge that no other Puerto Rican app has encountered before,” added Ortiz. “It’s something new for us and for any technology provider in Puerto Rico.”
At the moment, BUREA has around 160,000 active users in Puerto Rico but estimates at least 250,000 by the end of the year. When the startup arrives in Mexico, it hopes to attract half a million users in the first six months. It also plans to work with at least six manufacturers.
BUREA is the first startup that has worked with accelerator Parallel18 to raise US$2 million in a single round.
-JA
