Many of the world's greatest ideas have arisen from casual conversations between friends. A few years ago, a friend of Diego Garca and I met at a roast carnita. The idea that would become one of the fastest growing startup in Latin America was the result of a meeting 10 years ago between the two who had worked in the same business.
The name of the person is Clara.
Diego Garca de Clara was the son of Gerry Giacomn.
The idea for Clara came from this meal with nine other friends. A corporate credit card, an expense control system, and a payment and transfer product are used.
Diego and I became friends working in the company before Clara and more than anything in a roasted carnita organized by a mutual friend. Three companies have been founded from that meeting, among them Clara and Casai.
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Behind the fastest growing startup is a long road.
At the age of 18 he decided to study at Yale University to become a public servant to have a greater impact on society and cause positive changes in the community.
"After discovering the world of startups that I call the possibility of dreaming the future to bring it to the present, I have oriented my life towards this," said theentrepreneur.
At that time when he created his company, the ecosystems was less evolved and that is why he went to study the business school at the prestigious San Francisco school. She stayed on to work as an executive at various tech companies and met her husband, who is the co- founder of another successful startup.
Three years ago I returned to Mexico to start a skates company. Giacomn said that he was responsible for the growth of the brand in Mexico City for a year later to be present in seven countries.
He noticed that the companies in Latin America did not have the agility to grow as the market requested, contrary to what he had experienced in the United States. The brand wanted to have a management of the company's expenses that was fast. The lack of administrative mobility affected the execution capacity of the company we were in.
Many of the people who joined the team at that firm had previously worked together in companies in Mexico and Brazil and felt that they needed to solve management problems that they had seen. They decided to start working on Clara's project in 2020, but they launched the product in March of this year.
The co-founders of Clara are Diego Garca and Gerry Giacomn.
Clara is among the most popular soonicorns.
In the last 11 months, at least 10 Latin American startup have reached a valuation of one billion dollars, such as Kavak, Nu, Bitso, and so on.
Soonicorns are emerging companies that are on the verge of achieving unicorn status because they have an estimated valuation of at least 100 million dollars. According to a report by ALLVP Research, as of September 29, 2021, 25 Mexican startups had been counted among the soonicorns, and one of the strongest names is that of Clara.
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I grew up in a culture of good management of personal and business finances, and we realized that companies did not have funds to make essential expenses, they had to buy software and they could not do it, and that encouraged their production for days. Since there were no clear approval processes, no one knew how orders were traced. When it starts, there are approval flows with Clara because each expense is tied to a person.
In Latin America, companies tend to solve their problems on the fly and Clara seems to solve a real problem. Clara helps companies operate with good management and agility.
The market seems ready for an enterprise management solution like this one. Clara has raised 40 million dollars from venture capital funds and other international funds in less than a year, and has a portfolio of 2,000 thousand clients.
The team behind Clara has experts from large companies, such as Juan Domnguez, who served as director of human resources in several of Coca-Cola FEMSA's operations.
Since we launched publicly in March of this year, the growth has been very confusing, but we started working last year so there are many months of preparation before leaving something that may not be seen. We operate with our own credit card issuance license, which is granted by Mastercard, and we seek to build our product on very solid foundations such as our own processing stack. Giacomn said that this allows them to provide a stable and solid experience to their clients and accelerate the pace of innovation.
The image is courtesy of Clara.
They are going to Brazil.
Clara has gained popularity among emerging companies in the region because her service can be contracted remotely and in a single day as the product is also designed with a flexibility of mind. You can carry out operations via the platform, organize your suppliers, generate corporate cards, and manage everything in real time.
Brazil is the largest Latin American market and will be the next region where the company will offer its service.
It requires attention and is not a small market. Diego, our co-founder, has been living there for several months and the team is constantly on the move.
What is next for Clara? The founder hopes that his startup will play a key role in the economic recovery after the Pandemic.
We hope that we can continue to contribute to the companies that work with us and that it is reflected in our clients being more successful because they can manage their spending well, empower their team, give their sales force a card and who are looking for a little capital to reactivate their operations in Clara
