iFood’s undisclosed investment in the Daki digital supermarket platform will serve to evolve the company’s value proposition, invest in technology and artificial intelligence and boost its geographic expansion.
With an annualized amount of R$1 billion, with annual growth of 50% and reaching breakeven — when revenues and expenses are balanced in a business. For Daki, however, the value is still far from the ceiling. The company believes that there is still no winner in the segment.
“The supermarket market is worth more than R$ 1 trillion. So, digital penetration is still very low and our proposal here is to accelerate this growth. iFood’s investment came very much in the context of accelerating plans”, says Daki’s CEO, Rafael Vasto, to InfoMoney.
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Today, the company is betting on a business model based on fast deliveries (around 15 minutes), competitive prices and quality of delivery, says the executive. This logistics is supported by 3 large distribution centers and 40 urban distribution centers currently restricted mainly to the metropolitan regions of São Paulo (SP) and Belo Horizonte (MG).
The verticalization of the chain is a bet by Daki to maintain the pace in a market that has already seen many dropouts. Startups such as Justo, Mercado Different and Trela, competitors in the same sector, have ceased operations in the country in recent years.
One of the company’s bets is to expand the product assortment within the platform, currently made up of products ranging from grocery to fresh, ice cream or conditioned items.
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“We want to bring more brands to our categories. We have a vision of reinforcing our private labelwhich represents approximately 5% of sales. We want to increase the exposure of our own brands with a difference in price and quality”, says the executive. “We will also continue to provide space for even stronger regionalization and personalization of the assortment.”
On the one hand, Daki now wants to invest in data, technology and artificial intelligence: “For this market to accelerate digitally, it is necessary to operate in a logistics chain that is designed for online, a technology and data platform that is native to AI, real-time control of the operation”, says Vasto. Today, the penetration of digital alternatives is no more than single digits in Brazil.
On another front, the company is looking to expand its market. Despite not saying which regions it intends to go to, Daki should, by the end of the year, announce its entry into new regions, says Vasto. Expansion should be reinforced in the coming years. “We aim to go to other states. This is obviously part of this journey we are designing”, he says.
