Chile's Lokal raises $700,000 from Invexor for its B2B marketplace

Lokal, a Chilean B2B marketplace, raised 700,000 dollars from Invexor Venture Partners. The platform lets convenience stores, minimarkets and pharmacies order from multiple suppliers in one place.

Today it connects around 500 suppliers with 3,500 retailers across roughly 260 municipalities in Chile, with a team of nine people.

One part of the model I find interesting is the financing. Lokal pays the supplier and gives the retailer credit on the order. For smaller stores, where working capital can limit how much inventory they carry, that can matter as much as access to the supplier itself.

The company says it wants to reach more than 100,000 small stores, and part of the funding will go into a tool that recommends what to restock and when.

For consumer brands, this creates another way to reach fragmented traditional retail without depending entirely on individual distributor coverage.