Rintin's WhatsApp-first B2B bet for Mexico's informal shops: $6.2M raised

Rintin is a Mexico B2B wholesale marketplace that connects micro and small merchants directly with verified manufacturers and importers: 15,000+ SKUs, door delivery, cash-on-delivery, AI-scored embedded credit, WhatsApp ordering, and simple phone tools for inventory, sales and expenses.

That Mexico's informal micro-merchants will source wholesale and build credit on a WhatsApp-first B2B platform once cash-on-delivery and community earn trust.

US$6.2M early-stage round announced around 2026-07-30, led by Mexican VC Cometa with Newtopia VC, Latin Leap, Amador Holdings, FJ Labs, and angels such as Guillermo Rauch (Vercel), Adolfo Babatz (Clip), Guibert Englebienne (Globant) and Adalberto Flores (Kueski).

Economist and Columbia MBA Quinto Van Peborgh met sneaker-brand founder Gastón Greco in New York before the pandemic. After an earlier, smaller marketplace for Mexico City boutiques and Instagram brands, they targeted street stalls; Greco moved to Oaxaca to study how small merchants really bought, and Rintin launched in Mexico in the early 2020s selling through WhatsApp groups with cash on delivery.

Growth came from community and operations, not ads: 50 WhatsApp groups of up to 1,000 people each with specialists, logistics that mixed FedEx and Estafeta with local couriers, and then embedded credit scored from purchase frequency, catalog activity and even photos of the shop. Retention reportedly rises roughly eight times once a merchant takes credit. In early 2026 Rintin joined Endeavor Argentina's ScaleUp program; around 2026-07-30 it closed a US$6.2M round led by Cometa to scale the marketplace, credit penetration, catalog and AI tools.

Live and scaling in Mexico as of 2026-09-02: the company plans to deepen credit, add categories such as cosmetics and electronics, and enter Colombia and Argentina; no exit or shutdown.

WhatsApp-first distribution met merchants where they already transacted, and the 50-group community became free acquisition, product validation and demand aggregation.

Cash-on-delivery removed the fraud fear that blocked online wholesale for a segment that had been scammed before, making the first order safe enough to build habit.

Behavioral underwriting - purchase frequency, catalog activity, shop photos - serves sellers with no formal history, and credit lifts retention about eightfold, the number that makes the model work.

AI sales agents and catalog automation deliver personal follow-up and restock recommendations to thousands of merchants without matching headcount, keeping a logistics-heavy model lean.

In cash-first informal markets trust is the wedge: payment-on-delivery and WhatsApp groups de-risk the first order, then behavioral credit and AI agents compound that trust into lending.

As of 2026-09-02 Rintin continues to operate in Mexico and describes itself as an Endeavor Argentina ScaleUp company. Its roadmap is to expand the marketplace, raise credit penetration, add categories such as cosmetics and electronics, and enter Colombia and Argentina. Greco has described the Cometa-led round as a boost after an 'extreme optimization' period in a region where several logistics-heavy B2B marketplaces failed.