1998–2010: early years
Movile was originally named Intraweb and was founded in 1998 by two former Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp) students, Fabricio Bloisi & Eduardo Henrique, in the city of Campinas. The start-up Intraweb was organized through the University's corporate incubator. The initial purpose was to create corporate Intranets.
In 2001, Intraweb was absorbed by the GoWap website, the first company to receive a capital contribution by Rio Bravo Investimentos. This was the birth of GoWapCorp, a company in the field of corporate market data solutions by mean of cell phones.
In 2002, GoWapCorp was the subject of a capital outlay by 'Rio Bravo' and changed its name to Compera.
During 2003 and 2004, the company changed its business model, shifting from software to service provision.[2] Focus was transferred from the corporate market to concessionaires and end customers, with services such as cell phone video, games and music.
In 2007, Compera merged with nTime, a cell phone service company in Rio de Janeiro, creating ComperanTime.[3] In that same year, the mobile marketing company Movile was acquired.
In 2008, MIH Holdings, from the Naspers South African media group, acquired the interest held by Rio Bravo in ComperanTime.[4] and became the company's minority shareholder.
In 2009, ComperanTime announced its merger with Yavox.[5] Following these discussions, Yavox became ComperanTime's wholly owned subsidiary, but both companies and their respective trade marks were to go on existing separately for several months more.
2010–2014: rebranding and expansion
In 2010, following an extended market research period, ComperanTimeYavox decided to change its name to Movile.[6] Jointly with this new trade mark, a change in strategy also took place. Movile's key focus turned to digital inclusion by means of mobile services in emerging countries. During that same year Movile and Cyclelogic announced the merger of their operations in Latin America.[7]
In 2012, Movile opened its first offices in the United States[8] (in Silicon Valley, California) and concentrated its business strategy on that country's Latino market.[9]
By 2013, Movile invested $1.6 million in the startup iFood[10] and broadened the scope and number of orders by creating a
2015 started out strong for Movile with a mid-year investment of $40M (Series E) from Naspers and Innova Capital.[20] Movile then invested $50 million into iFood and Just Eat[21] along with a $15 million investment in PlayKids[22] for China and Japan expansion.
In 2016, Rapiddo acquires on-demand courier service 99Motos.[23] PlayKids expands with content from Sesame Street[24] and additional apps—PlayKids Talk, PlayKids Stories and PlayKids Party. iFood purchases San Francisco-based, online food delivery service, SpoonRocket's technology,[25] to expand their reach into additional restaurants in Latin America.
