When Roberto Funari left his position as CEO in Alpargatas (APOL4) two years ago, he had a good idea about his next step: he wanted to take advantage of the experience in creating and developing brands in whatever the contract. The target was the growing pet market.
Two great trends guided his decision. The first is the trend of humanization of animals, translated by the “fathers” and “mothers” of pets, who have gained emotional functions for their tutors driven even by family structures that no longer necessarily have a child.
And hence a second macro tendency. Humans are increasingly concerned with their health and well-being. It would be natural for this to transfer to the pets that became part of the families – and not few. Data from the Brazilian Association of Pets Industry (Abinpet), point to 139.3 million pets in Brazil.
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“This has brought this great sophistication, market development in different segments,” says Funari in an interview with Infomoney. Viepet, Venture Builder founded by Funari, acts on three theses: animal longevity; Health and prevention; Products dedicated to the care of pets on a daily basis.
According to the founder, Venture Builder differs from a capital venture – high -risk investment in companies with growth potential, usually startups – for the volume and proximity to their investers.
“It is very for the quality that we can land. The traditional approach to Venture Capital is to have numerous, dozens, hundreds of invested to see if one works. We want three to five to all work,” he says. “The investment cycle of a Venture Builder is longer in the sense that you work with projects in the early stages. But it is also not discarding average business that has a big opportunity to climb.”
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VIEPET will work with “Buy and Build” approaches, where you buy a new company, and make and build, when the business is designed indoors.
The first endeavor was for the second model, with the brand of food supplements and vitamins for Wigow dogs. The projected return is ambitious: with an investment of $ 8 million, reaching $ 1 billion in sales in the coming years.
The value would be higher than total product sales of the same type in Brazil, according to calculations of the company itself. According to Wigow, in the United States the segment already moves more than $ 9 billion annually, with penetration in 40% of homes with dogs and cats. In Brazil, this penetration does not reach 5%, and sales are less than $ 1 billion.
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“The big challenge for the pet sector here in Brazil is to bring products at a cost-benefit that does not restrict consumption, adapt to the income capacity of people,” says the executive. The other obstacle is access to technologies, either from the point of view of ingredients or local production, as innovations in the segment still enter the country mostly via imports.
Although it does not have a crawled project, Viepet has been talking to startups and medium -sized companies in search of a second invested.
