Argentine financial services software provider N5 aims to expand within nine countries in the region after its latest investment round.
“The first thing we are going to do is expand geographically. At this moment, we have a waiting list [in some markets],” CEO Julián Colombo (pictured) told BNamericas.
The company has steadily grown since its founding in 2017.
“Historically, we have been doubling the number of clients and billing year after year. Only this year it accelerated, and we managed to double it in the first seven or eight months of the year,” Colombo said.
The company expects to end 2024 with a turnover of US$20mn.
Growth came as the company entered markets with big clients and acquired customers elsewhere through these markets, Colombo said. “Paraguay is very representative. We did not have clients in 2021 and we are market leaders in 2023,” he said.
Half of Paraguay’s banks are clients of N5, but the company is only now opening a local operation.
Globally, the company aims to operate in 25 markets, compared to 14 currently.
“We have a presence in the United Arab Emirates, England, Spain, the US and a lot in Latin America,” said Colombo. “We have teams in 31 cities and 14 countries, although they do not always coincide. For example, in Panama we have clients but not yet a local team and in Ecuador or Venezuela we have a team but no clients. We do two separate searches: one for business and another for talent,” he added.
Last week the company announced an investment round that generated interest “eight times greater” than expected, but whose amount cannot be revealed for confidentiality reasons.
Investors Illuminate Financial, Exor Ventures, Madrone Capital Partners, LTS Investments – the holding company of the Lemann, Telles and Sicupira families – Arpex Capital and accelerator and digital project specialist Overboost, among others, participated in the operation.
Part of the proceeds will be used to hire staff. Some 800 positions are open, while N5 has 323 employees currently.
Clients include Mastercard, Santander, Credicorp Bank, Zurich, Sudameris, Banco Atlas, N26 and BCP.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Proceeds will also go toward artificial intelligence. “We want to be the platform with the most density of artificial intelligence per line of code,” according to Colombo.
The company is a partner of major cloud providers Google, Microsoft and AWS, and is implementing some artificial intelligence tools, including generative AI.
“Decidimos no competir con alguien que tiene un enfoque tan específico y una asimetría de recursos tan grande como Google, Microsoft o AWS. Si mañana por la mañana [algunos de estos proveedores] tienen una nueva funcionalidad, nuestros clientes podrán tenerla por la tarde”, afirmó.
“We decided not to compete with someone who has such a specific focus and such a huge asymmetry of resources like Google, Microsoft or AWS. If tomorrow morning [some of these providers] have new functionality, our customers will be able to have it in the afternoon,” he said.
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