As Revista Exame reported at first hand, Zoox Smart Data received a financial investment of 27 million BRL as the third round of investments, which was led by HDI Seguros with the participation of 2A Investimentos.
With this influx of cash, Zoox will expand its technology area and develop new solutions that can help the hospitality, transports and retail areas to get themselves organized and structured following the COVID pandemic.
“We want to invest more and more in solutions that can translate data into behavioral trends and thus help to guide decisions, focused mainly on the experience and desire of the consumer and society”, says Rafael de Albuquerque, president and founder of Zoox.
“About 70% of what we invest is directed to development of new solutions. In 2021, we will go deeper into technologies such as Advanced Analytics and machine learning. In parallel, we will reinforce the commercial efforts for the recently launched Zoox Eye and Zoox Experience products”, he reveals.
Up to now, the startup had received a total of 11 million BRL in two previous rounds. The first one in 2018, was set at 3M and had the participation of Brazilian Family Offices. Whereas the second, valued at 8M, took place in 2019 and was also led by the same investors as in this third round, HDI Seguros and 2A investments.
“The previous rounds helped to bring the future closer to us. It won’t be any different now”, says Albuquerque. “Our goal is to increase revenue by at least 50% this year. Even considering the pandemic offsets, April was the only month in which we did not meet the billing target. Without this investment round, we would have to slow down our growth plan and wouldn’t be able to keep up with the pace we’ve been at until this moment”, he adds.
Zoox currently employs 130 people and has offices in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Argentina, Canada, Mexico, France, Spain and the United States, there is also one unit of the Georgia Tech University’s advanced technology development center. The business grows at a rate of 70% per year.