The startup that wishes to take its restaurant off iFood

With commissions that swallow 12% to 30% of sales, iFood and Rappi are seen by most restaurants as that unwanted partner that, in the absence of options, you have to live with and tolerate.

Now, a startup founded in the midst of the pandemic is trying to position itself as an alternative to this forced marriage.

Kuppi has created what it calls a “digital sales manager” for restaurants — basically, a solution that includes a digital menu, a chatbot to fulfill orders on Whatsapp, and a digital marketing automation tool to help attract new customers. .

“Restaurants are very dissatisfied with their dependence on iFood,” Matheus Nager, the co-founder, told the Brazil Journal. “Before the pandemic, this commission pain was not so blatant because delivery represented a small portion of sales and competition was less. With the pandemic, this has become a matter of survival for many businesses.”

Kuppi was founded by Matheus and Rodrigo Belém, who had previously undertaken with BomCupom, a microfranchise that offered discounts from local businesses on the back of invoices — and which was yet another victim of the pandemic.

Since its inception, the startup has raised BRL 2 million with angel investors and the manager Niu Ventures, owned by Ronaldo Barreto, Reinaldo Normand and Paul Bragiel.

With the money, she reached 600 customers, who pay a monthly subscription of around R$150. The plan is to close the year with 1,000 restaurants in the base and triple that number in 2023.

The startup wants to make a new round at the beginning of the year, after reaching the breakeven.

Kuppi operates in an extremely competitive market. There are at least 60 companies offering digital menu solutions — and some of them are well capitalized. But the founders say that none offers the marketing — a crucial point for the equation to work.

“We started just as a digital menu, but that is not enough by itself because it does not bring new sales, which is the great differential of marketplaces,” said Rodrigo.

Kuppi’s marketing solution allows the restaurant to create a campaign on Facebook or Instagram with just three clicks, promoting, for example, the promotion of a dish to customers who live within the establishment’s delivery radius. When clicking on the ad, the customer is directed to the digital menu or WhatsApp.

In addition to avoiding the fat commissions of marketplaces, Kuppi’s solution addresses another essential issue for any digital business. In its own channel, the restaurant takes control of the data, being able to make new campaigns for this base and with that, it increases the lifetime value (LTV) of customers.

In iFood, the client belongs to iFood.

Source: Brazil Journal