N5 Now was born five years ago in the United States by seven Argentine founders. Since its inception, it was fully financed by clients, willing to advance money in exchange for being the first to obtain the platform that allows the digitization of companies in the financial sector.
Last year it was recognized by Microsoft as “Best Platform 22“, for being the only one designed for openfinance. According to Julián Colombo, CEO of N5, who spoke with Forbes Argentina, the central difference between N5 and other options offered by the market is that, instead of being a generic platform for any type of company, it is specific to the financial industry.
“This focus allows a degree of detail and depth impossible to achieve in generalist solutions,” says Colombo. “Banks have very particular characteristics. For example, the number of points of contact with the user – mobile, ATM, online banking, call center, branches, investment areas, collections, messaging, Whats App and many others – and the diversity of products, services and segments, “he explains.
In this way, he continues, “a customer could be paying at the branch the payment of his credit card, while using the mobile and begins to invest. The complexity of these relationships is not easily grasped by platforms that were not created with this in mind.”
According to Colombo, another point that differentiates them in the industry is knowing the challenge of suffering “technological entropy“, that is, “the tendency to disorganize systems for the simple fact of existing”. And he cites an example: “One of our customers has 240,72 employees and 3,<> active software, that is, one for every <> people. It is evident that every day hundreds of your systems stop working, have stability problems or become obsolete. It’s extraordinarily difficult to keep that ecosystem operating, and at the same time innovate.”
Why did you decide to seek outside investment at this particular time? What stage is the company in?
There were two processes simultaneously: the first is that N5 was always a profitable company, which is unusual for a young company with a lot of capital investment in its platform. That made the funds pay special attention to us in a contractionary period of the venture capital industry.
At the same time, customer growth and demand in new geographies led us to want to bring in partners with the experience of scaling a company globally. We had no financial considerations in choosing the VCs, but we decided 100% based on their ability to support us at this stage, and I think we got each of them right.
“Today we have teams in 29 cities and customers in 14 countries”
Currently, the company is in the scaling phase, growing at 200% per year, and with expectations to continue at that pace in the next 18 months.
To which countries do you plan to extend your operations and why?
Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Panama and the United States are the geographies where we are focusing right now. In Peru, for example, we already have as a client the largest bank, the largest insurance company and a payment company, and only next month we will open the local office.
Where do you currently have offices and in which countries do you plan to open?
The company was born remotely six years ago and will always have that characteristic. We look for talent wherever it is, and orchestrate it to serve clients in diverse geographies. Today we have teams in 29 cities and customers in 14 countries. However, we also have some physical units in Argentina, Brazil, the United States and Spain, and we will open nine more in the next 18 months, mainly in Latin America.
Why did you decide to seek outside investment at this particular time? What stage is the company in?
There were two processes simultaneously: the first is that N5 was always a profitable company, which is unusual for a young company with a lot of capital investment in its platform. That made the funds pay special attention to us in a contractionary period of the venture capital industry.
At the same time, customer growth and demand in new geographies led us to want to bring in partners with the experience of scaling a company globally. We had no financial considerations in choosing the VCs, but we decided 100% based on their ability to support us at this stage, and I think we got each of them right.
“Today we have teams in 29 cities and customers in 14 countries”
Currently, the company is in the scaling phase, growing at 200% per year, and with expectations to continue at that pace in the next 18 months.
To which countries do you plan to extend your operations and why?
Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Panama and the United States are the geographies where we are focusing right now. In Peru, for example, we already have as a client the largest bank, the largest insurance company and a payment company, and only next month we will open the local office.
Where do you currently have offices and in which countries do you plan to open?
The company was born remotely six years ago and will always have that characteristic. We look for talent wherever it is, and orchestrate it to serve clients in diverse geographies. Today we have teams in 29 cities and customers in 14 countries. However, we also have some physical units in Argentina, Brazil, the United States and Spain, and we will open nine more in the next 18 months, mainly in Latin America.
Were there any countries with above-average adoption of the platform?
A similar phenomenon occurs in all countries. At first, some more innovative or informed companies seek us out, and we start working together. It is expected that in the financial industry the purchasing and contractual processes will be extensive. But after that, with the first implementations the impact is evident and the market “accelerates”. A close example is Paraguay, where even before opening our local office we already had half of the most important banks as clients, and in 14 months we went from not being known to leading the market.
How much did they grow in customers in recent years?
In general, we double the number of clients year after year. But in 2023 this accelerated to the point that we doubled the number of customers in the first eight months of this year.
You have operations in Argentina… How would you describe the current landscape of the market in which the company operates and what are the most significant challenges and opportunities it faces in the country?
Our focus in Argentina has more to do with the talent of its people than with the specific market potential. We are committed to growing locally in business, but much more as a team.
Editorial: Franco Della Vecchia – Forbes Arg
