Andrés Gutiérrez: Starting and scaling a LatAm market leader

How has the Colombian tech ecosystem evolved since you started out?

It's amazing to see how much the ecosystem has evolved in the last 10 years. Colombia, for example, had only one VC firm and now we have over 15. Back then we haven’t seen any tech exits, and now we’ve had at least 20 M&A deals over $25 million. We have at least three unicorns and at least 10 decacorns. I believe Colombia is a bellwether for the region.

Tpaga has matured, as I have as a CEO. Building a bank in Latam requires serious focus on infrastructure, as more often than not, connections and integrations with traditional players and payment rails are nonexistent. We are also a bigger company in terms of KPIs, having evolved to 3.5 million users, doing 1 million transactions per month, processing close to $20 million a month. We’ve learned (sometimes through many mistakes) how to operate an efficient company. Finally, I think we are less naive of how ‘easy’ it is going to be to disrupt financial services, and with a 10x better understanding of the neobank economics.

Data shows us that LatAm is the most profitable region in the world for financial services, and that half of the population is yet to be served. Our vision is  to provide access to financial services to 100% of the unbanked on the continent. If we do our job right, I believe we can help millions escape poverty, by having access to bank accounts, savings, credit and insurance.

LatAm tech seems to be dominated by Mexico, Brazil and Colombia. Do you see other regions emerging as new tech destinations? Central America and Venezuela are vastly overlooked. Collectively Central America could be the 4th or 5th largest market in the region, and have less than 1% of VC funding. Central America (and Venezuela) are huge remittance markets, which remain very fragmented and informal.