Mexico’s economic development – boosted by the scale of offshoring in recent years – has made it fertile ground for startups. But this trend is threatened if President-elect Donald Trump follows through on his idea of take a harder line on trade with Mexico.
Jaime Tabachnik, co-founder and CEO of Mexican trucking finance startup Solvento, isn’t too worried, however. “Mexico is the best trading partner, geographically, economically and logistically” for the United States, he told TechCrunch in a recent interview. But even if relations deteriorate, he says, Mexico’s growing economy is big enough for his business to expand.
“The intra-Mexican market, and with our ports, is still big enough that we can build something very big and gigantic,” he said. “We definitely welcome an incredible U.S.-Mexico trade partnership and that it continues to thrive, because it’s an incredible tailwind for us, but we’re not dependent on it to thrive.”
Tabachnik shared this view as his company closed its $12.5 million Series A funding round, led by venture capital firm Cometa and including existing investors like Austin, Texas-based Ironspring Ventures.
The company, founded in 2021, provides modern financial services to trucking companies in Mexico, often replacing less-savory lenders that small Mexican businesses had to rely on in the past, Tabachnik said. Solvento offers invoice financing, automated payments and its products in general increase transparency and liquidity in the trucking industry, he said.
Solvento hopes to use the funding to grow from a current customer base of about 500 carriers to 5,000 by the end of 2025, Tabachnik said. Scale is key because Tabachnik said he believes this financial slice of the transportation market is a “winner takes most” situation.
“We need to act quickly,” he said.
On this growth path, Tabachnik said he wants to add new products such as fuel cards and start giving credit to companies to buy trucks. It is also launching a freight information platform that leverages the millions of invoices processed to date, which shippers and carriers can use to compare trucking rates across the country.
To do this, Tabachnik said Solvento was able to convince some of the banks that were previously hesitant to enter this market and entered into partnerships with new entrants in Mexico like Uber Freight.
“If we help (customers) add new assets and more trucks to their fleet, it will just help them generate more revenue, more bills will be further reduced and they will use more fuel. So spinning that flywheel, in addition to evolving the core offering, is what we think is putting the setup in an incredible position for our B series,” he said.
“We live in a time where I think nearshoring has been the buzzword over the last couple of years, right? » said Tabachnik. “But it’s real.”