Pepper, a New York-based technology platform for independent food distributors, acquired Alima, a Y Combinator-backed startup that created ordering and procurement software for small food distributors in Latin America. The deal, announced Tuesday without disclosing financial terms, adds Alima’s two co-founders to Pepper’s leadership team and extends the company’s push into AI-powered product content and data infrastructure for an industry that still largely runs on phone calls, faxes and personal relationships.
Jorge Vizcayno, CEO of Alima, will lead Pepper’s product content platform and data infrastructure, which uses artificial intelligence to combine and enrich product catalogs at scale. Blanca Espinosa, CMO and co-founder of Alima, will lead the implementation for the client, applying artificial intelligence tools to the onboarding process that has historically been one of the most contentious parts of selling software to food distributors.
Two companies, one thesis
The acquisition is small in isolation, but telling in what it says about where vertical food distribution software is headed. Pepper and Alima were built on the same premise: that independent food distributors, who together account for more than two-thirds of food distribution in North America and handle more than $1.4 trillion in annual sales, are woefully underserved by technology.
Alima, founded in 2021, approached the problem from the Latin American side, where the gap is even greater. More than 85 percent of the region’s B2B food suppliers and distributors lack digital sales capabilities, according to the company’s own estimates. Alima built an ordering platform for small and medium-sized distributors, initially focusing on sourcing fresh products in Mexico. The company made it through Y Combinator’s Winter 2022 batch and raised $1.5 million in seed funding from Soma Capital, YC, The Dorm Room Fund, and angel investors.
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Meanwhile, Pepper has grown into a broader platform covering ordering, sales and marketing, accounts receivable and integrated payments for US-based food distributors. The company has raised $99 million in three rounds, most recently a $50 million Series C in February led by Lead Edge Capital, with participation from ICONIQ, Index Ventures, Greylock, Harmony Partners and Interplay. It now serves more than 500 distributors representing approximately $30 billion in annual gross merchandise volume.
The AI ​​angle
The strategic logic of the deal centers on product content, the large, fragmented catalogs that food distributors must manage across thousands of SKUs from hundreds of suppliers. In food distribution, product data is notoriously confusing: item descriptions vary between suppliers, packaging formats differ by region, and prices change frequently. Pepper has been building Artificial intelligence systems to combine and enrich this data automaticallyand Vizcayno’s experience in building similar infrastructure for Latin American distributors makes the acquisition a bet both on talent and technology and on market expansion.
Espinosa’s role is equally revealing. Customer implementation, the process of getting a distributor onto a new technology platform, is where many vertical SaaS companies lose deals. Distributors often have limited technical staff, legacy systems that resist integration, and operations that cannot afford downtime during a migration. Pepper is betting that AI-assisted onboarding can compress what has traditionally been a months-long process, and Espinosa’s experience in customer acquisition at Alima positions her to lead that effort.
This is Pepper’s second acquisition in seven months. In August 2025, it acquired Kimelo, a distribution toolset that included a restaurant supply ordering app. The pace suggests Pepper is consolidating a fragmented market of small vertical tools into a single platform, a familiar playbook from other industries but still relatively early in food distribution.
A $1.4 trillion market, still on paper
The broader context is that food distribution technology It is still in its infancy despite its enormous market to which it is directed. Independent distributors are the backbone of the food supply chain, connecting farms and manufacturers to the restaurants, grocery stores and institutions that feed people. However, industry adoption of technology lags far behind comparable sectors such as logistics, retail and financial services.
Pepper’s list of investors, which includes Index Ventures and Greylock, indicates that significant venture capital is flowing into the space. February’s $50 million Series C valued the company at an undisclosed figure but positioned it as a category leader in a market where no dominant platform has yet emerged. The acquisition of Alima adds Latin American domain expertise and a bilingual founding team to a company that will likely need to expand beyond the US to justify its funding trajectory.
For Alima’s founders, the framework is pragmatic. Vizcayno described the acquisition as the most honest continuation of Alima’s journey. Whether that honesty reflects strategic alignment or the practical reality that a $1.5 million early-stage startup in a difficult Latin American market found a faster path to impact within a better-funded platform, it is ultimately the same thing said in two different ways.
