Yummy: Delivering Value to Venezuela

By June 2021, Yummy had become Venezuela’s first and largest food delivery app and last-mile logistics company. In Caracas, the nation’s capital, Yummy held a 55% market share, while operations in other cities had already started to take place, including in three of the country’s most populous ones. But this did not come without challenges — it had been a hectic year since the operations were launched in April 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic broke out — with the direst one being the difficult task of raising money to start and grow a business in Venezuela, a country that ranked among the worst globally for doing business. However, the startup has just gained admission to an American seed money startup accelerator, allowing Yummy to attract institutional investors and to explore potential growth avenues. With a board meeting approaching, the company’s CEO, Vicente Zavarce, reflected with co-founders on the possibilities that lay ahead. Should Yummy keep expanding geographically to other cities in Venezuela or even branch out into other countries, either in Latin America or worldwide? Should the company instead grow by expanding to new verticals, leveraging its customer base by offering additional services such as ride-sharing or financial services? And what would be the right sequence for these activities if Yummy’s new vision was to become a super app?