It should be easy to open a business bank account, but Salomon Zarruk and Sebastian Ortiz decided they didn't want another Latin American business to go through the same difficulties.
Zarruk was less than impressed with the experience of moving to Mexico to launch a mobile wallet company with his partner. He said that opening a bank account for the company was not easy.
They came up with Mono, which means "monkey" in Spanish, a company that provides corporate or business accounts for startup companies in the country. Mono was started in January by Zarruk and Ortiz and Juan Camilo Poveda and José Toms Lobo.
Poveda had previously developed banking products for Nubank. Lobo has a tech ops background.
Lobo said that the company's name was inspired by a fire in the forest. The land is fertile despite being black and filled with ashes, and when the monkeys start eating seeds from trees on the ground, it becomes new growth.
An example of a dashboard. The image is called Mono.
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Mono is the first bankingless bank for startup and small businesses in Latin America, providing financial services and fully digital bank accounts that can be opened in around 15 minutes versus an average of two weeks at an incumbent bank.
He said that the company is the first to build a bank for entrepreneurs in Latin America and that it is an autopilot bank. Mono didn't have an account after two months when it tried to open a bank account at a big bank.
Mono distinguishes itself from its competitors by approaching business accounts with credit cards, payment terminals or cash management products, according to him.
Mono is building its own tech stack while working with a local bank. The ability to make and receive wire transfers and make payments are currently offered.
Zarruk said that speed was their motivation because they wanted to help small businesses compete.
The company has grown organically. Mono achieved $1 million in payment volume by the end of March. The company expects to have its senior leadership in place by the next year.
The company announced $6 million in seed funding, led by Tiger Global, in order to keep going. The round was also participated in by Y Combinator. Mono has a whole squad of angel investors, but highlights for this round are Monzo founder Tom Blomfield and Jamie Devlin from Revolut.
Mono will be able to plan for future expansion to other countries thanks to the funds.
The most important thing right now is product development, according to Zarruk. We are building a strong tech stack to integrate with third parties so that we can begin to offer accounting features that are currently difficult to do.
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