The startup Pacto has announced a pre-seed round of US$2 million. Funds and investors from Latin America and the United States have led the round. Among these investors are FEMSA Ventures – the investment arm of the retail giant FEMSA –, 500 Startups LATAM, Leap Global Partners, TnT Ventures, Hive Hatch, First Check Ventures and the former SV partner Angel Kevin Carter.
Pacto is a digital payment and on-site ordering SaaS company that targets restaurants and bars in Mexico. As of this month, it will begin to operate in other countries in Latin American.
Ryan Croft (CEO and co-founder) and Gordon Whitehouse (CPTO and co-founder) created Pacto this year. Their goal was to make their technology accessible to consumer centers, because they represent one of the most relevant sectors of the Mexican economy.
According to data from the Mexican Ministry of Tourism, this sector generated 131 billion pesos in 2020 despite the pandemic. Although it decreased by 29.3% compared to the previous year, the restaurant sector still represents 12.2% of all businesses in the country.
SaaS for Restaurants
Covenant is not a delivery app; it is a software service that facilitates restaurant and bar ordering in real time. It does so by offering dynamic digital menus, on-site mobile ordering, contactless payments and operational support functions.
Once installed in the establishment’s software, Pacto works as a point-of-sale (POS) integration center that allows you to take orders, process payments and generate invoices.
Croft and Whitehouse have previous experience running successful startups in the United States. The opportunity they saw in Mexico was mainly due to the dominance of cashless commerce (cash payments) in the country and the sector, since more than 86% of transactions are carried out in this way – mainly in restaurants and similar businesses, since many of them are small and medium-sized companies that are not very digitized. Covenant wants to help optimize the operations of these businesses.
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