Brazilian food delivery giant iFood has acquired Advolve, a local artificial intelligence company focused on performance marketing, to accelerate the growth of its advertising business. The deal is designed to make iFood a more powerful media platform that connects brands and users with greater precision both inside and outside the app. It also supports the company’s ambition for its Ads division to grow fivefold by 2030.
Strategic rationale of the acquisition
By bringing Advolve in house, iFood aims to deepen its capabilities across the entire advertising journey, from campaign creation to measurement. The platform already gives brands access to moments of high purchase intent within its app, and the acquisition strengthens this proposition with more automation and optimization. iFood positions this move as a way to increase relevance for advertisers while improving the experience for its tens of millions of users.
AI driven campaign automation
Advolve has built an AI architecture that runs simultaneous tests, generates and adjusts creative assets such as text, images and video, and reallocates media spend toward the best performing combinations. Working together, iFood and Advolve will be able to segment audiences based on each brand’s objectives and evaluate results after every delivery of an ad unit, in a way that would not be feasible without AI. This capability extends beyond the iFood app to other digital environments and enhances a closed loop model that tracks the full path from impression to final sale.
Performance of iFood Ads to date
Since launching iFood Ads in 2021, the company has offered brands qualified access to users in restaurants, supermarkets, pharmacies and pet shops at high intent moments. More than 230 companies have already advertised on the platform, and the largest advertisers have seen revenue increase by more than 40 percent. The industry facing Ads vertical has grown 70 percent this year, reinforcing iFood’s view that media is becoming a core growth lever within its ecosystem.
Strategic vision and benefits for users
According to Sam James, vice president of Ads at iFood, Advolve will infuse artificial intelligence into every stage of a campaign within the platform. He highlights that both companies are technology first and share a vision of being AI led organizations, which makes the integration a natural step. For users, the company expects more personalized and timely offers that match their purchasing context, making the advertising experience feel more relevant and less intrusive.
Advolve team integration and previous backing
Advolve’s founders, João Sobreira, João Paulo Martins and Djary Veiga, along with the entire team, will remain with the company, which continues to serve external clients with a focus on consumer goods and the iFood ecosystem. The team will keep refining the technology and advancing tests beyond the app to deliver a comprehensive 360 degree Ads solution for brands and agencies. In February, Prosus Ventures, the global tech investment arm of Prosus and controlling shareholder of iFood, had already invested in Advolve, citing its potential and strong synergies with the broader ecosystem.
Proven results and retail media market context
Before the acquisition, iFood and Advolve ran smaller scale joint projects in the Ads division, generating incremental sales returns for brands of more than four times the amount invested. These results, combined with the strategic alignment between the two businesses, led iFood to evolve the relationship into a full acquisition. The move comes as retail media consolidates globally as a key engine of digital advertising, with Forrester forecasting that global spending in the segment will surpass 300 billion dollars by 2030 and Latin American investment expected to more than double to reach 5 billion dollars in the same period.
With Advolve now under its umbrella, iFood is reinforcing its position as a major retail media player in Brazil, supported by proprietary data, AI capabilities and a recurring user base of around 60 million people per month in 1,500 cities. The acquisition is expected to deliver more efficient campaigns for brands, stronger monetization for iFood and more targeted offers for users across food delivery, grocery, pharmacy and convenience categories. As retail media continues its rapid expansion, the combination of iFood’s scale and Advolve’s technology places the group in a stronger position to capture a larger share of this growing market.