With more than 1,200 active companies and a presence in 52 cities in 18 states, Pick n Go! is innovating in the restaurant delivery market

Cedro Capital, an independent asset manager based in Brasília (DF), has announced its investment in the startup Pick n Go, a delivery management and monitoring software startup.

Founded in 2020 by Pedro Garcia and Ghirad Abdul Hak, today they share the partnership with three other entrepreneurs: Lucas Born, Thamer Hatem and Luigi Pedroni. The amount of the investment has not been announced, and the round also includes Bossa Nova, Raja Valley, Sebrae SC and Christianno Guimarães, an executive specializing in logistics technology.

“We are thrilled to conclude another investment in a company born in Brasilia, which addresses the logistics challenges for the food services segment in a different way. The partners understand the sector well, and we see potential for expansion into other delivery segments,” said Alessandro Machado, managing partner of Cedro Capital.

How it came about

Pick n Go was born in 2020 with an innovative proposal conceived by Ghirad, owner of the Spot hamburger chain, and Pedro. During the social isolation resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic, they realized that while the number of orders in the store increased, so did the logistical problems at the large delivery companies, causing delays and countless complaints from customers.

It was then that Ghirad decided to share his delivery drivers with other restaurants, getting a percentage for each delivery made and with the same full-service features offered by the giants in the industry. The differentiator for customers was the significantly lower cost than the competition. The product was so successful that it attracted Lucas, an entrepreneur from Rio de Janeiro, who became a partner and expanded the platform throughout the state.

Pivoting

Pick n Go’s turning point came in June last year, when Thamer and Luigi joined the company and together they decided to reposition the startup, migrating from a service solution to a scalable technology solution. During this period, the delivery services operation was sold and the company began to operate exclusively as a supplier of management and monitoring software. In this way, the new system has been adapted to meet the individual needs of logistics operators and restaurant owners, allowing them to use their own delivery drivers, which reduces costs and increases profits in delivery operations.

“The software allows customers to organize the schedule of couriers, monitor them in real time, check the average delivery time, know how many runs that courier has made and how much was charged for each run, as well as generating operation reports, such as a heat map of the best customers,” said Pedro.

Pick n Go currently operates with more than 1,200 active companies, covering 52 cities in 18 states. Recent data from the startup points to a significant positive impact provided by the system: a 29% reduction in the number of unfinished deliveries and a 74% increase in customer satisfaction. For Pedro, “this transformation reflects the company’s ability to adapt to market needs and provide effective technological solutions for the delivery and management sector”.

Timely partnership

At the beginning of 2023, with the consolidation and commercial success of Pick n Go, the partners realized the opportunity to seek investment. Inova Startups, an acceleration program that combines investment and knowledge, provided access to a networking network and four months of training. During this period, talks with Bruno Brito and Alessandro Machado, partners at Cedro Capital, matured and proved to be strategically complementary. The profile of being an active partner who participates side by side in the challenges of the journey from investment to exit completes the picture well.

With the investment, the company’s goal is to double its turnover this year. “We closed an incredible opportunity to boost the company’s growth. From our very first contacts, we felt that Cedro’s partners, Christianno, were in tune with us. We believe that this partnership will bring positive results and help us achieve our goals and objectives,” concludes Pedro.