Solvento is a Mexican fintech company founded in 2021 that offers technological and financial solutions to companies in the trucking sector that enable them to automate and speed up their collections and payments. Solvento has over 100 clients, including major players in the logistics and trucking sector like 99minutos, Packengers, Onest Logistics, CLG Transportes, Transportes EASO, Liftit, Logtec and GAIA. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Solvento CEO Jaime Tabachnik to learn more.
Jaime Tabachnik’s Background
Over the last decade, Tabachnik worked across many facets of the supply chain and logistics industry, from strategy to operations to digital transformation. And Tabachnik said:
“I started my career working as a civil engineer in the family business – an electric distribution company – where I later led strategy and operations across several departments and managed relationships across our vendors. From there, I moved on to serve as CEO of a digital freight brokerage company. Here, I was even more deeply ingrained into the world of Mexican trucking & logistics and saw firsthand the financial pain points plaguing the industry. These pain points were the catalyst that led to founding Solvento.”
Formation Of Solvento
How did the idea for Solvento come together? Tabachnik shared:
“Throughout my experiences working across supply chain and logistics, I was consistently frustrated with how difficult it was to retain truckers and loyalty of carriers due to bottlenecks associated with the lack of payment infrastructure in such a fragmented industry, inspiring the idea for Solvento. About 95% of the 200,000+ trucking companies in Mexico have fewer than 5 trucks in their fleets, reflecting an extremely competitive and fragmented market. Many small and mid-sized carriers in the Latin American trucking industry face challenges in securing working capital. Additionally, it’s common practice for shippers to not pay truckers for up to 60 days on average after the goods have been delivered, effectively keeping them from growing.”
“At Solvento, we’re working to address these issues by injecting working capital into the supply chain, allowing shippers and carriers to pay their truckers faster and addressing the deficit of drivers in the industry.”
Favorite Memory
What has been Tabachnik’s favorite memory associated with founding Solvento? Tabachnik reflected:
“One of my favorite memories was during my time as a student pursuing my EMBA from Northwestern while concurrently serving as CEO of a digital freight brokerage company. My Solvento co-founders and I made the decision to participate in the University’s annual venture competition, when Solvento was still just an idea. We ultimately ended up winning the competition, which gave me the validation and security needed in order to quit my full-time role to focus 100% on Solvento. This was the catalyst that allowed us to build Solvento into what it is today.”
AI Software Offering
You just launched a new AI software offering. What are Solvento Audita’s key features? Tabachnik explained:
“The trucking industry involves complex invoicing and various charges, including accessorial charges like maneuvers, overnight stays, and backhauls. Solvento Audita’s AI-powered software helps validate these charges, ensuring that shippers and brokers pay only for what was agreed upon and providing transparency, accuracy and speed in payments while optimizing an otherwise manual and time-consuming process.”
“Specifically, Solvento Audita enables companies that hire truckers to:
- Extract information from each document and validate that the data is correct, eliminating possible human errors.
- Reconcile PODs vs. their associated invoices and fees, thus ensuring the correct payment of each trip.
- Validate complex and non-standardized accessorial charges.
- Gain visibility into internal and market data to facilitate strategic decision-making within the business.
More Information About Customers
After asking Tabachnik more about the company’s customer base, he cited:
“We work with the shippers, third-party logistics companies, and carriers that are powering the Latin American trucking and logistics sector. We currently work with 150 customers, including major industry players like Nestlé, 99minutos, Packengers, Onest Logistics, CLG Transportes, Condumex, Transportes EASO, Liftit, Logtec and GAIA, among others.”
“And our customers have great things to say about our technology! Since integrating our solution, 53% of our customers have reported an increase in quality of life, while 29% report an increase in their money earned.”
Challenges Faced
When asking Tabachnik about the challenges faced, he acknowledged:
“Recent regulatory mandate disclosures, which are intended to improve control over goods transportation in Mexico, have made the invoicing process more complex than ever for retailers working with suppliers by requiring invoicing generation per shipment. Many of these retailers do not have the proper infrastructure to manage this volume of resulting transactions, auditing and validations to pay, leading to inaccuracies in the process, compliance issues and lost profits as a result.”
“We designed Solvento Audita to solve for these specific bottlenecks by giving retailers the auditing and payment infrastructure they need across their freight spend, enabling them to build loyalty with suppliers and optimize service levels and inventory availability at point of consumption, while gaining full visibility on spending, equating to huge savings in the long term.”
Evolution Of Solvento’s Technology
How has Solvento’s technology evolved since launching? Tabachnik noted:
“Since our launch, we’ve been able to integrate AI into our technology to fully automate and streamline the entire process of validating and auditing payments to carriers end-to-end.”
“The end-to-end accounts payable process for the on-the-road freight industry further optimizes time and improves financial operations, meaning even more time and money can be saved on the most complex components of our customers’ operations.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of Solvento’s most significant milestones? Tabachnik highlighted:
“Solvento has been able to make significant strides in supporting the LatAm trucking and logistics industry. To date, we’ve granted over $80 million in cumulative loans, supporting more than 1,000 freight transportation companies in improving their financial standing, collecting invoices whenever they need and giving total certainty to their truckers on when they will get paid.”
Funding
When asking Tabachnik about the company’s funding information, he revealed:
“We recently raised a new $3.5 million round led by Quona Capital and closed a $50 million debt facility from Lendable. This new round brings our total equity funding to-date to $10 million.”
“This new funding will go towards the further development of Solvento’s product offerings and expansion in commercial efforts in order to meet the growing needs of the $200 billion LatAm trucking market.”
“Our new lending facility will enable shippers and brokers to offer quick pay and inject working capital into the supply chain for the benefit of carriers and truckers alike. As a result, it will help carriers pay their drivers faster, addressing the concerning deficit in driver capacity.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Tabachnik assessed:
“Solvento’s TAM consists of the shippers, third-party logistics companies, and carriers serving the LatAm economy. The total spend on on-the-road transportation services is calculated at $90+ billion.”
“The trucking industry is at the heart of the Latin American economy but is consistently underserved by traditional financial institutions. About 95% of Mexico’s trucking companies are considered SMEs, with fleets of fewer than 5 trucks that operate on razor-thin margins. With many of these businesses under tight working capital constraints, and few with access to digital payment or financial tools, there is a clear market white space across the country and broader Latin American region and we’re working to fill that void.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates Solvento from its competition? Tabachnik affirmed:
“While there are other fintechs focused on developing payment and credit infrastructure in the trucking industry, Solvento is the only provider that is specialized to serve the specific needs and address the bottlenecks affecting the LatAm trucking and logistics market.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of Solvento’s future company goals? Any plans for U.S. expansion? Tabachnik concluded:
“As a company, Solvento’s vision is to become the leading financial technology platform and the largest provider of working capital to the Latin American trucking sector. With this funding, we are positioned to continue supporting more companies in the logistics sector to mitigate cash flow and liquidity challenges.”
“While we’re currently specifically focused on the LatAm trucking sector, the addition of this new debt facility will allow us to continue to expand our reach to target US companies looking to hire Mexican carriers for nearshoring and crossborder dynamics.”
