iFood has just announced the acquisition of a 20% minority stake in Brazilian martech company CRMBonus. The invested capital will be used by CRMBonus to accelerate technology development and investment in AI, as well as to proportionally buy back some of the investors.
The investment strategy is a second step taken after a successful commercial partnership established between the two companies, which has already brought benefits to both partner restaurants and users of iFood and iFood Benefits. The partnership involves 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’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 more robustness. “We are talking about two Brazilian technology companies that helped redefine their sectors. We have 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 are 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 both future and present. The first partnership had already opened several 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 attracting new customers to their establishments through our platform. With the investment, there are many big things to come; I am excited about what we will create together. Having the technology company I most admire in Brazil as our partners is a pride, we will 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 want to develop is an AI-powered gifting platform with great delivery convenience. We believe this initiative has the potential to represent for the retail market what iFood represents for restaurants—it could be transformational.”
New solutions and new experiences for users
Also in the joint plans of the companies is to boost the CRM system already offered by iFood Pago. With CRMBonus’s expertise, the tool will become even smarter in suggesting cashback strategies so restaurants can attract and retain more customers.
Another initiative envisioned for iFood partners is access to an additional sales channel: the Bonus Voucher app by CRMBonus, which will direct its base of millions of users to consume at iFood partner establishments, both in the physical and digital worlds, representing another boost in traffic generation for the establishments, strengthening iFood’s position beyond the online world. The integration with Bonus Voucher is another example of how the two companies will work, along with other iFood partners, to create a digital convenience environment where consumers have access to a wide variety of products and services in a seamless and integrated experience.
The listed initiatives 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, the round represents a new upround compared to the investment made by Bond Capital in May 2024, when CRMBonus was valued at R$ 2.2 billion.
The operation and the new partnership to be established between iFood and CRMBonus still depend on approval from regulatory bodies.
