The Bahian startup Recicla Lead CRM secured financial backing in negotiations with Bravo3, an investment fund specialized in leveraging resources for emerging businesses. The contribution amounts to around R$ 3 million to expand the commercial operations of dealerships and auto resellers, increase sales, and generate other profits for the stores.
The pilot project, implemented in over 60 stores and dealerships, showed a growth of up to 30% in the revenue of these participating companies. From then on, the expansion began to over 3,500 car dealerships across all states of Brazil. They are now beginning negotiations for entry into Mexico, Colombia, and Portugal.
The investment also foresees that Recicla Lead CRM will invest resources in other growing segments, such as the pet market, including products and services for pets. About 3,000 pet shops will start to have access to the tool, with the development of new features and integrations.
Recicla Lead CRM is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform with marketing automation and F&I. (F&I is the abbreviation for Financial and Insurance, which in Portuguese means financing and insurance), which besides recovering potential abandoned customers, turns them into business and exponentially increases store revenue.
Bravo3 is led by CEO Daniel Bento, former president of Decolar, who served as an advisor introducing investor Luiz Sacramento, founder and former CEO of Pinpag, a payment solutions company, who decided to bet on Recicla Lead. Immediately after being introduced to the project, I was captivated by the possibilities of having a true hub of products and services aimed at the automotive market, where I had previously worked with Pinpag in earlier years. The principle of using strategic partnerships that add value to the product, as well as the quality and knowledge of the other investors, were fundamental in my decision to be part of this successful team.
Bento states: "I have extensive experience with startups, so we offer to help with some guidance, and I got involved. I know little about the automotive market, but we are talking about a highly fragmented segment, poorly professionalized, although car salespeople are highly specialized in what they do, they have limited knowledge of technical tools to improve sales. It is a needy segment that moves a lot of money, and because of the large volume of transactions, it allows people to do things their way, without much dynamics."
According to Bento, "we want to help exactly this retail sector that lacks technology and knowledge to operate on equal footing with the major market competitors. This is the biggest challenge of Recicla Lead: to make small retailers capable of competing with large automotive sales chains. This entire organized process is what we understand they need; the salesperson doesn't need to convert everything but needs a technology partner to help them face the giants, and this will convert much more than just the salesperson's good talk."
He states that "retail needs to know that it can control better, be more efficient in serving its customer, even if it's the father, the mother, and the child, acting as salespeople for the small retailer. It's about using technology to your advantage to solve the problems of your segment."
Daniel Bento has been in Germany for 9 years and from there manages Bravo3's business, stays attentive to the innovation market, and sees that potential businesses can grow exponentially, leading him to select startups in which the company will invest. He is a specialist in Business Strategies and Innovation from The Wharton School and has worked at Braspag. Today, there is participation in a company based in Switzerland called Transfero Group and another called Octuspay, which is headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, United States, but most of the current business is in Brazil, including Starfusion, Onfly, ETS, Startgi, and Konduto.
With all the expertise in tourism business and payment methods, he assesses that the problems faced by the segments are similar in difficulty level; the challenges are strategic. "My business is to strengthen the entrepreneur so that they can turn their idea into a successful business. The entrepreneur must address the pain they discover."
Initially focused on the automotive sector, the solution, which has already demonstrated significant results in a pilot project at dealerships, now arrives with the promise of optimizing sales processes and boosting revenue for multi-brand dealerships across the country. The inclusive platform is already being used in a pilot project at some Audi dealerships.
The CEO Daniel Carvalho Cruz is in charge of the company Recicla Lead CRM, and has the expertise of participating in the growth project of Ifood, where he was one of the responsible for implementing the system, among other startups in more than 14 countries in South and Central America. And it highlights the passion for working with emerging brands. We use the same techniques to help expand these businesses. We work for small businesses with the same energy.
