SoftBank Group Corp. is close to making a $1 billion investment in Latin American delivery app Rappi, according to people familiar with the matter.
…Colombian startup Rappi was valued at more than $1 billion in its last fundraising round in September, in which it raised $220 million led by DST Global. It wasn’t immediately clear how much the company would be valued at after the SoftBank investment.
Rappi was founded in 2015 by three friends as a restaurant-delivery business in Colombia’s capital, Bogota. It has since spread across Latin America, employing armies of bike-riding couriers wearing bright-orange cube backpacks who deliver everything from grocery orders to diapers. Last month it teamed up with French bio-pharmaceutical giant Sanofi to offer health-care services in Latin America.