Solvento keeps money flow trucking with new capital
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
Solvento, a fintech company serving Latin America's trucking sector, secured a $50 million debt facility to help keep a vital part of the supply chain running, CEO Jaime Tabachnik tells Axios exclusively.
Why it matters: Spurred by the pandemic's supply chain shocks, retailers have begun to reshore or nearshore some of their manufacturing closer to the end customer.
Details: The new debt facility was provided by lending platform Lendable. Alongside the new debt, Mexico City-based Solvento also raised a $3.5 million seed extension led by Quona Capital.
- Dynamo Ventures, Ironspring Ventures, Proeza Ventures and Zendra VC also participated.
- The equity will give the company "enough firepower" to scale its AI freight-monitoring software product with finance capabilities for auditing and offering payments.
- Tabachnik estimates the funds grant Solvento more than 24 months of runway.
How it works: Solvento's technology automates the lending process, from facilitating payments and invoices to putting carriers in a better liquidity footing by freeing up working capital.
- Its AI-powered auditing product will allow retailers to see how much they spend on freight and compare it with average market spend.
What they're saying: "There is this gap and working capital challenge of having to wait an average of 60 days to get their money back after they invested in performing a transportation service that is constraining them from growing and competing," Tabachnik says.
- Providing the working capital third-party logistics providers and carriers need to pay their drivers helps them "continue operating and build a very resilient and solid supply chain," Tabachnik says.
What's next: The company, which operates in Mexico and works with U.S. companies that do business with Mexican carriers, plans to expand into the rest of Latin America in the next five years, Tabachnik says.
- Mexico would be its primary focus, but it could see a "natural expansion" into Brazil in the longer term, he adds.
- Solvento wants to scale up to work with enterprise customers that have "a very large supplier base of truckers and that pay very big amounts in freight spend every month."
- It is working with Nestlé in a pilot phase, and Colgate and PPG are in the pipeline.
Catch up fast: Solvento has raised a total of $10 million in equity to date.
- It also had another debt facility of $3 million that it has repaid.
