iFood has just announced the acquisition of a 20% minority stake in the Brazilian martech company CRMBonus. The invested capital will be used by CRMBonus to accelerate technology development and AI investment, as well as to buy out some investors proportionally.
The investment strategy is a second step following a successful commercial partnership already established between the two companies, which has been benefiting both partner restaurants and iFood and iFood Benefícios users. The partnership includes issuing Bonus Vouchers for iFood Club subscribers and new customer acquisition, loyalty, and monetization tools for restaurants, powered by CRMBonus solutions.
Strategic partnership focused on retail
Currently, the martech company’s strategic strength is directly connected to retail, a key market for iFood, which has been expanding its value proposition with an increasingly comprehensive portfolio of products and solutions. The goal is to drive growth for restaurants and other partners. With the partnership and investment in CRMBonus, iFood advances in this front with even greater strength. “We are talking about two Brazilian tech companies that have helped redefine their sectors. We’ve already seen a demonstration of this with the start of the partnership, and the potential of combining these two brands to transform the lives of consumers and merchants is immense. We’re talking about Brazilian technology made by Brazilians for Brazilians.”, says Diego Barreto, CEO of iFood.
Brazilian technology made by Brazilians
According to Alexandre Zolko, CEO and founder of CRMBonus, the partnership with iFood is about both the future and the present. The first partnership had already opened up multiple fronts for restaurants: “Today, we already enable iFood partner restaurants to strengthen their loyalty strategy by offering credits in CRMBonus partner brands, as well as attract new customers to their establishments through our platform. With the investment, there are major things to come; I’m excited about what we will create together. Having the tech company I admire most in Brazil as our partners is a point of pride—we’ll learn a lot from iFood’s expertise and jointly develop increasingly relevant and innovative solutions for our retail segments. A great example of what we aim to develop is an AI-powered, high-convenience gifting platform. We believe this initiative has the potential to do for the retail market what iFood has done for restaurants—it could be transformational.”
New solutions and new experiences for users
The joint plans between the companies also include enhancing the CRM system already offered by iFood Pago. With CRMBonus’s expertise, the tool will become even smarter in suggesting cashback strategies for restaurants to attract and retain more customers.
Another initiative envisioned for iFood partners is access to an additional sales channel: the CRMBonus app, Bonus Voucher, which will direct its base of millions of users to purchase from iFood’s partner establishments, both in the physical and digital worlds, representing an additional boost in traffic generation for the establishments. This strengthens iFood’s position beyond the online world. The integration with Bonus Voucher is another example of how the two companies will work, alongside other iFood partners, to create a digital convenience environment where consumers have access to a wide variety of products and services in a seamless, integrated experience.
The initiatives listed are just some of the many joint possibilities between the companies, justifying the investment. Although the valuation of the current transaction has not been disclosed, this round represents a new upround relative to the investment made by Bond Capital in May 2024, when CRMBonus was valued at R$ 2.2 billion.
The transaction and the new partnership to be formalized between iFood and CRMBonus are still subject to regulatory approval.
