Multi-vertical density creates winners
Sebastian Mejia, co-founder of Rappi, on building for multi-verticality in on-demand
On-demand delivery usually ends with a small number of winners because city level density is what turns a cash burning courier network into a real business. More orders in the same neighborhoods mean shorter trips, better courier utilization, lower delivery cost, and less need for discounts. In Latin America, early exits by Glovo in Chile and Brazil and Uber Eats in Argentina and Colombia already showed that subscale players struggle to keep spending once bigger networks lock up merchants, couriers, and repeat demand.
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Rappi’s case for being one of those winners is not just market share, it is multi-vertical density. Food, grocery, pharmacy, e-commerce, and fintech all push more transactions through the same app and courier network. That raises purchase frequency over time and makes each city network more productive.
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The closest comparable is Meituan in China. The pattern is similar, first win frequent, low margin delivery use cases, then cross-sell into higher margin categories. Rappi’s own research found more than 90% of customers buy from at least two categories, which is how a delivery app starts acting more like a local commerce utility.
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Geography matters. Rappi’s economics benefit from dense Latin American cities and lower labor costs, with estimated delivery expense at 10% of GMV versus 14% to 16% in Asia and 30% in the U.S. That gives the top local networks more room to outlast rivals while competition rationalizes.
The next phase is less about adding another delivery category and more about turning local scale into durable control. The winners in each country will bundle logistics, merchant tools, ads, subscriptions, and payments into one operating layer for urban commerce. If Rappi keeps compounding frequency and city density, consolidation should make its network stronger and its margins structurally better.