Well being dealer for SMEs, Piwi raises R$ 20 million and needs to develop 10 occasions in three years

The seed capital round was led by DNA Capital, a specialized health sector manager, and included Scale-Up Ventures, Endeavor Brasil’s investment fund.

Digital brokerage for small and medium businesses, the Piwi has just received its first investment in the amount of R$ 20 million. The seed capital round was led by DNA Capitalspecialized manager of the health sector, and had the Scale-Up Ventures, investment fund of Endeavor Brasil. The startup was also selected for Endeavor’s acceleration program, Scale-up.

DNA’s interest in the business is because Piwi’s main activity is to take care of a pain in the health market, the difficulty of access by small and medium-sized companies, with up to 500 employees, to health plans. The startup created a platform from which the human resources area can access, simulate quotes in time and manage contracts and benefits.

“When we started to explore the market, we realized that selling to these companies was disqualified. There were people who sold health plans to Europe filters and disappeared after signing the contract. We understood that there was an opportunity to generate value”, says Felipe Baeta, CEO and co-founder of Piwi🇧🇷

How the resources will be used

The startup was born in 2019 offering only this type of health plan brokerage service, still today the main source of revenue accounting for about 85% of revenue. Over time, it expanded the offer and added dental plans, life insurance, mental health solutions and other benefits such as vouchers.

As it includes new products, Piwi seeks to position itself as a platform that solves all the operational pains of human resources in companies, whether using its own management tool or integrating with solutions that customers already have. “We want to optimize the work so that HR can really dedicate itself to strategic management”, says Baeta.

The values ​​of the round will also be used to boost the technological development of the brokerage. The idea is to integrate more and more solutions to the platform so that customers can have a complete view of the benefits and services under management.

Another part of the contribution will go to communication, Piwi wants to expand its digital visibility and dialogue channels with the market, as a way to strengthen commercial fronts.

How Piwi was born

The son of stockbrokers, Baeta grew up hearing industry jargon like “sinister” and “prizes”. The last term, contrary to the reference that other mortals have, always had another significant and negative bias. After all, in the plans and insurance market, it means something that has to be paid for – not received. This experience and knowledge obtained throughout life were fundamental for seeing the business opportunity when it presented itself.

Prior to the creation of Piwi, he has been at the family brokerage firm, Centurium, where he served as director of marketing and sales. The company offers health plans to large companies, but it always received calls and requests from smaller businesses.

The situation triggered an alert for Baeta, who has been interested in the world of entrepreneurship since he was young. The professional, trained in economics, accumulated passages at Endeavor and Fiesp and had just gone through a first experience as an entrepreneur.

He co-founded Ofélia, a functional beverage business that he managed from 2012 to 2015. After adherence tests, they concluded that there was no space in the market.

For the new venture, he used the family company itself as a laboratory. The positive result led to the spin off by Piwi, created with Wagner Bernardo, executive with passages through Porto Seguro, currently Porto. He is co-founder and head of CX and Digital Product.

The beginning of the journey received the support of another important figure in the health market, Roberto Laganá, founder of Careplus🇧🇷 In the launch phase, the executive entered with angel investment of BRL 1.5 million and is a member of the board of directors of the startup.

What are the next steps

With the inflow of capital, Piwi aims for more aggressive growth. The startup has been doubling in size year after year and, in the new strategic plan, works with a 10-fold expansion over a three-year period🇧🇷

This translates into an expectation of closing 2023, for example, with around 1000 companies served, which would represent an increase of approximately 160%. In terms of people in the portfolio of these companies, it would go from 17 thousand to a number close to 50 thousand.

Source: Exam