The Portuguese startup Pleez closed another round of financing. On this occasion, the company that provides sales optimization services for restaurants and delivery platforms raised an investment of two million euros in a series A round???????? This round comes a few months after the loan of 1.5 million euros, in April, which allowed the company to expand into the Spanish market.
This new round was led by Lince Capital, a Portuguese venture capital firm, and also included the participation of the German funds Atlantic Food Labs and Axel Springer Porsche, both already investors in the startup. The amount raised will allow Pleez to double its workforce from 30 to 60 people in 2023 and “consolidate its presence in the Iberian market”, details the company’s statement.
The company was born in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, which significantly shook the meal delivery market. The startup created by Afonso Pinheiro and Vasco Sampaio has developed a technological solution with the aim of increasing and optimizing restaurant sales, which offers an active management service for restaurant menus on delivery platforms, such as Glovo or Uber Eats.
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The algorithm developed by Pleez collects information available on delivery platforms and from the restaurant itself, also adding information about competitors to this “recipe”. In a statement, it is explained that an extensive analysis is carried out that, in addition to this information, also includes “relevant external factors such as, for example, weather conditions, the day of the week, the time of year, among others” . In the end, the idea is to identify when and how certain items or dishes from the restaurant menu should be presented to customers on the platforms, trying to optimize sales.
In addition, the company explains, “restaurants have access to a tool that provides 360 market information in one place, and each restaurant has its own customer area where they can access their sales data and make projections, measure the impact of the dynamic changes in the menu, or even receive market information about prices and promotions of the competition”.
According to figures shared by the company, the process, carried out in real time and continuously, allows sales margins and total sales volume to be increased. It is said that the “adoption of Pleez solutions has allowed member restaurants to increase their sales by around 15%, and this increase will be even higher in the medium and long term”. In half a year, Pleez has managed 72,000 orders per month and currently has a portfolio of more than 300 clients.
“We are very happy and proud to incorporate Lince Capital, the first Portuguese investment group to join us”, comments Afonso Pinheiro, co-founder of Pleez, about this investment round. “Looking to the future, we are sure that this new round of investment will help us in the internationalization process, with the aim of helping all players in the restaurant industry to make more informed decisions about their businesses.”
Vasco Pereira Coutinho, general director of Lince Capital, explains in the same statement that “the pandemic has intensified the use of platforms such as Uber Eats, Glovo or Bolt Food, with restaurants experiencing a large increase in sales through the delivery????????
Source: Observadora
