Ex-Honestbee boss gets real estate giant’s backing for new app in the Philippines

Imagine opening a single app to find and order everything you need from food to hardware products, pay for them in a single check-out process, and get the items delivered to your doorstep. This is the kind of customer experience that Pickaroo, a new app being launched today in the Philippines, wants to offer via an “all-in-one” delivery platform.

“I think what’s very common is that, normally, you have a separate food app and you have a separate delivery app for groceries,” Crystal Gonzalez, CEO and co-founder of Pickaroo, tells Tech in Asia.

Photo credit: Pickaroo

Gonzalez used to lead the Philippine operations of the Singapore-headquartered grocery delivery app Honestbee, which closed down last year amid financial and management setbacks.

With the lessons learned from her experience at Honestbee, she’s now developing her own take at a delivery service that is customized for the Philippines. She has also roped in former Honestbee employees to lead Pickaroo’s operations, business development, categories, and expansion.

The startup has won backing from one of the country’s top conglomerates.

Conglomerate backing

Pickaroo raised its first US$5 million in investment from Agile Digital Ventures, the technology and digital investment arm of Philippine real estate conglomerate Megaworld Corporation, which not only develops residential properties but also operates malls, office spaces, and hotels.

Kevin Tan, the president and founder of the VC firm, is also a co-founder at Pickaroo, which is Agile’s first startup investment. He’s the son of Philippine business tycoon Andrew Tan, the chairman and founder of Megaworld.

Gonzalez discloses that she serves as chief operating officer and a board member at Agile as well, with a stake in the company.

“With what happened with Honestbee, I feel more secure and sustainable to have an established local investment partner [for Pickaroo],” says Gonzalez.

She says that the collaboration will enable the two entities to empower offline retailers in the Philippines that are struggling to go online amid the Covid-19 pandemic. By combining Tan’s real estate and retail expertise with Pickaroo’s tech capabilities, the duo aims to help SMEs and malls – even those not owned or operated by Megaworld – become successful in ecommerce.

Startup-corporate collaborations like this are usually deemed challenging as two companies may not always have similar approaches to risk, growth, and resources. But this perception seems to be slowly changing.

In the Philippines, conglomerates have already invested huge sums of money in tech companies as well as other digital ventures. A notable one would be the US$40 million poured by JG Summit – a conglomerate with interests in retail, real estate, telco, and air transportation, among others – into Sea Group, which operates gaming major Garena and regional ecommerce player Shopee.

And as Covid-19 hit, SM Investments Corporation, one of the biggest mall chain operators in the country, started boosting its ecommerce efforts to reach its customers. It also plans to participate in the grocery delivery space in the future.

A local advantage