ifood announces 20% purchase of CRMBonus

IFood has just announced the acquisition of a minority stake of 20% in the Brazilian martech CRMBonus.The capital contributed will be used by CRMBonus to accelerate the development of technology and investment in AI, as well as to buy back some of the investors in a proportional manner.

The investment strategy is a second step after a successful commercial partnership between the two companies, which has already brought benefits to both partner restaurants and users of iFood and iFood Benefits. The partnership consists of issuing a Bonus Voucher for subscribers of the iFood Club and new tools for acquiring, loyalty and monetizing customers for restaurants, driven by CRMBonus solutions.

Strategic partnership focused on retail

Currently, the strategic strength of martech is directly connected to retail, a key market for iFood, which has been expanding its value proposition with an increasingly complete portfolio of products and solutions.The goal is to boost the growth of restaurants and other partners.With the partnership and investment in CRMBonus, iFood advances on 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 beginning of the partnership and the potential to combine these two brands to transform the lives of consumers and merchants is immense. We are talking about Brazilian technology made by Brazilians for brazilians''', said Diego Barreto, CEO of iFood.

Brazilian technology made by brazilians

According to Alexandre Zolko, CEO and founder of CRMBonus, the partnership with iFood is 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, in addition to attracting new customers to their establishments through our platform. With the investment, there is a lot of great things to come; I am excited about what we will create together. Having the technology company that I admire most in Brazil as our partners is a pride, we will learn a lot from the expertise of iFood and jointly develop solutions increasingly relevant and innovative for our segments of operation in retail. A great example of what we want to develop is a platform for gifts driven by AI and great convenience that represents the retail market that represents the retail market.

New solutions and new experiences for users

It is also in the joint plans of the companies to boost the CRM system already offered by iFood Pago. With the expertise of CRMBonus, the tool will become even smarter in suggesting cashback strategies so that restaurants can attract and retain more customers.

Another initiative envisioned for iFood partners is access to an additional sales channel: the Vale Bonus application, from CRMBonus, which will direct its base of millions of users to consume in iFood partner establishments, both in the physical and digital worlds, representing another traffic generation reinforcement for establishments, which strengthens the position of iFood beyond the online world. The integration with the Bonus Valley is another example of how the two companies will work, together with other iFood partners, to create an environment of digital convenience, in which consumers have access to a wide variety of products and services in a fluid and integrated experience.

The initiatives listed are just some of the numerous joint possibilities between companies, justifying the investment. Although the valuation of the current transaction has not been disclosed, the round represents a new one upround in relation 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 signed between iFood and CRMBonus still depend on approval from regulatory bodies.