You are Renata Vasconcelos, 41, head of Bandeira Labs, the new-ventures unit of a large São Paulo logistics group. It is Monday, 16 March 2026. Three proposals sit on your desk and there is money to fund only one. You must choose by Friday.
The situation
Bandeira Logística moves some 480,000 parcels a day across all five Brazilian regions and booked R$2.1 billion in revenue last year, but its margins are shrinking. Its innovation unit launched four businesses in three years and shut three of them late, after they had already grown: roughly R$14 million burned. Since then a new rule from the CEO applies: a fixed budget, a fixed runway and a decision date that does not move.
You have R$9 million. Your team spends about R$1 million a month, so you have roughly nine months. In month six an investment committee will decide whether there is a business worth a second internal round of R$25 million; for that, at least 35% of the customers interviewed must have committed to a paid pilot.
The three candidates: RotaSmart, AI route optimisation sold to other carriers (a huge market, buyers who are your competitors, sales cycles of 9 to 12 months); EntregaFlex, same-day micro-fulfilment for small online sellers (the closest to today's business, thin margins, entrenched rivals); and DevolveJá, a returns platform for retailers (a painful, underserved problem, though nobody yet knows whether they will pay to solve it). Eduardo Malta, the liaison with the core business, has backed EntregaFlex since January: one retail client has told him it is interested.