Brazilian Start-Up Movile Raises New Funds, Plans Expansion in Latin America

Brazil’s mobile commerce platform Movile has raised an additional $40 million in funding from Naspers and Innova Capital to increase its suite of apps and services in Latin America.
This is the second round of funding from the two companies, which pumped more than $35 million into the Brazilian start-up in 2014.With new funds in its coffers, Movile will expand its operation in Latin America and beyond.
With more than 30 million monthly active users, Movile is one of Latin America’s largest mobile commerce platforms. The company has over 400 employees and is connected to over 40 carriers that collectively have 700 million mobile subscribers.
The Sao Paulo-based company first debuted its content and payment applications for mobile phones 16 years ago and has continued to broaden its mobile offerings ever since. It’s best known app is PlayKids, one of the top grossing apps for kids globally.
Last year, it welcomed on board Apple’s former senior designer Everaldo Coelho, indicating that it is hunting for new talent to bolster its operations.
It entered the mobile app-making business after it combined Central do Delivery and iFood, which registers around 1.7 million orders monthly and its growth reached 143% last year. Over the last three years, Movile has invested more than $100 million to build a suite of mobile commerce apps and services across the delivery, logistics and streaming media markets.
“Movile’s growth in Brazil and beyond is impressive, but the solid business underpinnings they use to manage and integrate brands, extracting synergies, while not losing sight of delivering profitable operations is what sets them apart,” explained Veronica Allende Serra, Founding Partner of Innova Capital.
In a statement, Movile said it would also bolster operation in ticketing industry through a $4 million investment in Sympla, a Brazilian online ticketing and event management company.
This is Movile’s second investment in ticketing industry after pouring $2 million into CinePapaya, a Peruvian tech start-up that lets moviegoers purchase tickets online and via mobile devices.
Sympla is a full-service platform that offers ticket sales, finance, social media and audience analytics tools. Since 2012, it has sold more than four million tickets to over 50,000 events held in about 2,000 Brazilian cities, according to Movile.