He has 25k paid clients

Welcome to another CEO Wisdom Podcast. We have Matt Cole with us today. Matt is, uh, Cole is a CEO of Sumo SaaS, uh, in the London area. He's also, uh, CEO at the company called the Newbox and chairman. I believe you transitioned to that role. He's empowering a million entrepreneurs, uh, via leading SMB financial management platform in in America, so in Latin America. So Matt, welcome to the podcast. Tell us a bit more about yourself and what you've been up to.

Charles, it's great to be here, and I'm always passionate about promoting entrepreneurship in Latin America, helping small businesses be more successful, and sharing all the lessons learned over the past years. I'm connecting from Santiago, Chile, where I live Um, we are Suma SaaS. We're building, uh, AI-powered platform for small business and accounting studios in, in Latin America. And, um, really just happy to connect with you and tell our stories.

And how did you start it out and landed there? Because I think you were an associate at JP Morgan in São Paulo for 4 years of your life in '92. Is that what got you started in Latin?

Yeah, I am a reformed investment banker still in, in therapy, um, and recovering. Um, but yeah, I started my career with JP Morgan, worked in New York, in Chile, in Brazil. I had another— a bunch of other, uh, uh, experiences in the private equity world, but then finally realized my passion was entrepreneurship. We started Suma Together with Riverwood Capital, about 10 years ago, we acquired Nubox in Chile, which was the leading accounting platform and still is for accountants and small businesses in Chile. Then we acquired Kolpi in Argentina, and then in 2021, we acquired Binde in Mexico. And we operate all three of those business units under the Suma umbrella.

So you have a background in finance, right, with acquisitions always a natural path for you?

Yeah, you know, it's something, um, I trained to do. I, I didn't grow up writing late lines of code, um, you know, I, uh, I didn't build these products. We had the good fortune to partner with very successful entrepreneurs who had raised venture capital, who had built, you know, very successful businesses, and they were looking for a platform to help them take the business to the next level. And that's where Suma comes in, we're an enabler of growth, we share best practices, we build machines which are scalable and replicable from business unit to business unit. And right now we're working on transformation of all of our business units to an AI-native platform, and, um, and we're actually learning together. Um, and that's the whole reason that we came up with Suma, and, um, you know, that's where we feel we add the most value.

Right. And was the play in LATAM mostly that it's a similar time zone to the US? Are you focused in building businesses in LATAM? Are you all actually serving US clients as well?

No, we're 100% focused on Latin American clients. Um, all of our software was built in-country for the local clients, 100% compliant with local Norms, the only thing from the United States in this company is my passport, but I also am a permanent resident of Chile. So, you know, we are 100% local in everything we do, and I think that's part of our secret sauce at Summa, is that while we are a global business with world-class investors and we compare ourselves to the best AI platforms in the world, you know, our solutions are very localized they comply with local norms. It's very hard to cross borders with locally compliant software, particularly for SMBs. And that's where that combination of being global and local, what we call glocal, is what we feel is our secret sauce.

And why would they use you and not like the most popular ERP, let's say an SAP or something like that? Why would they use you instead of a global, uh, globally used platform like this one?

Yeah, no, it's a, it's a great question. Um, first of all, you know, we are focused on small businesses and the accounting firms that, that serve small businesses. They generally do not need an ERP. They generally need a solution which allows them to track cash flow, to comply with local norms, to execute payroll, to issue electronic invoices. Um, our products, you can be up and running in 1 or 2 days. You rather than a, you know, 3 to 6 month implementation of NetSuite or, or 3 to 6 year implementation of SAP. And, and then finally, you know, our software is built for the local norms as local laws, unlike a global solution which, you know, might be compliant with international accounting standards. But, you know, the last mile here is really what matters, and Our SMB clients are looking for something that solves their problem where they are, um, at the moment that they need it, rather than, you know, a global solution with tons of bells and whistles.

Got it. And most of your ICP, I would guess, like SMB owners, accountants, CFOs, right? That's who you target?

We target everybody. We target, um, you know, entrepreneurs that are doing their books on the kitchen table. Uh, we, uh, our plans start at, you know, $10 or $15 a month. Our average ticket is closer to $100 a month, so we grow with our customers. Um, you know, we have very sophisticated accounting, uh, studios with, you know, 1,500 customers, and we have mom-and-pops who are just want to issue electronic invoices and, and comply with the local norms and everything in between. What we do focus on is small businesses and accounting firms that that serve small businesses. So medium-sized companies that need more sophisticated solution, we're happy to see them graduate so that we can empower more and more small businesses on our platform, right?

Um, have you found a challenge in selling to Latin VS in the US? Because, or did you ever had even experience selling in the US? You have like such a weird background. Like, uh, have you compared like both markets? Because in my opinion And with my experience, selling in LATAM is way easier. People still respond to cold emails in 2026, you know, while in the US the market is inundated with cold emails, for example, in advertising. So what are your thoughts on that?

Listen, I think selling is really difficult wherever you are, but I think if you break it down into its components, you know, it gets a lot easier. It probably starts with, you know, a very compelling value proposition, differentiated value proposition. To be honest, we don't have that much success with cold emails. We actually try to talk to all of our customers. We run a very robust inbound process where customers reach out to us. We have pretty strong brands in the markets where we operate, you know, which obviously helps. And we talk to a lot of leads. Um, yeah, you know, we, we talk to thousands of SMBs. Our TAM is, in our 3 markets, is close to 10 million SMBs. So we have, you know, essentially unlimited, uh, TAM. Uh, but what we try to do is be super segmented, um, try to understand pain points, um, try to be very honest when we feel we can solve them and when we can't, um, try to propose a solution where we can resolve those pain points in a matter of days or weeks with our So, you know, it's a bit of selling, it's a bit of, you know, us also being very selective in who we're talking to and, and being sure that we can solve their problems and maintain credibility at all times.

And you've been running that one for a decade now. Is it the 100K paid clients or 100K clients total on the platform?

Right, so we have actually— the numbers have increased. So today we have, um, close to 25,000 paying customers. We have 125,000 SMBs administered on our platform. So an accounting studio, for example, might, you know, keep the books for 10, 20, 30, uh, clients, and those are the clients which are administered on our platform.

And where does most of that revenue come from? Is it Argentina? Is it Brazil? Is it Mexico? Which country is doing the best?

Chile is our largest revenue source. It's the smallest company— country where we operate. And then Mexico and Argentina come up with the balance, which are two much larger markets where we feel like we've got a lot of running room. The penetration rates are, you know, very, very low still in SMB software. It's the final frontier of software in my view. You know, there was sort of enterprise government, then there was B2C, Now we're at B2SMB. We compete with Excel and pen and paper still. And so 60% or 70% of our customers come in with no software. And that's really where we are focused, is making those companies more successful. Chile, again, is our smallest market and our largest revenue source today.

You do Brazil as well, Portuguese?

No, we're not. We do not currently operate in Brazil.

Okay, do you feel you have some kind of moat protecting you from all these big guys just because you know the Latin market better?

I tell you the truth, I'm more worried about the small guys. Um, you know, with everything going on, um, with the cost of software development and engineering going to zero, um, with, you know, all the, uh, AI revolution, you know, I'm more worried about startups, um, and us staying nimble staying close to our customers. I'm not worried about QuickBooks, uh, you know, or Xero not coming to, to Latin America. And if they do, uh, you know, we would be delighted to, to compete with them. Um, what we're trying to do is just be the most agile, nimble, AI-powered, uh, solution in the market, uh, so that we can, you know, uh, stay ahead of our customer— our, our, our competitors, and in some cases stay ahead of our customers. I mean, you know, if we're not building solutions, Agentic solutions for them they're going to be building them for themselves. So we want to be sure that we, we have the single best agentic solution in the market, which integrates a system of record with an agentic layer, um, which does the work. And that's where we see the biggest moat, because we are currently the system of record in all the markets where we operate.

And you raise capital for that one, right? So when was that, and what was the hyperscale playbook back then? Was it mostly investing in software or just giving a massive blitz with ads, like what happened after you were funded.

Yeah, so we, again, we partner with Riverwood Capital, which is really the leading, um, scale-up growth tech investor in Latin America. They've been investors in some of the biggest success stories in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and other markets in Latin America. Based in Menlo Park with offices in New York, Miami, and São Paulo, Brazil, they've been tremendous partners Um, yeah, we ran a very straightforward SaaS playbook, um, from 2016 up until a couple years ago. We began to supplement that with, with two things. One is an agentic, uh, you know, layer where we are communicating with leads, um, generating marketing campaigns, in some cases closing deals with agents, activating customers. But at the same time we now have more opportunity to be closer to our customers. So there's been something interesting that's happened in the last 12 months is we've actually spent more, more time and more investment in in-person events with our customers, something we didn't actually used to do very much. And those have also been incredibly successful. So, um, it's interesting how the Agentic playbook frees up more of our time for our go-to-market team to visit customers, to have live events. We just did a demo of our new Agentic bank reconciliation product and a monthly tax close where we had 50 of our VIP customers participate last week. We're going— and we do— we're doing more and more of these in, in Mexico and Argentina and Chile. And it's something a bit counterintuitive that the AI revolution is creating more opportunities to spend time with, with humans. And isn't that great?

Um, what have you seen the last decades on the SMB, uh, scene of things and potentially accounting and finance. And what have you seen, uh, on the startup scene both in LATAM, right, as a guy that analyzed that scene a lot?

Yeah, well, I mean, you know the startup scene in Latin America as well, but it's been amazing to see how many world-class companies have been created out of Latin America in the past 10 years, you know. Um, I mean, starting with Nubank, which, you know, it's just been an incredible success story out of, out of Brazil with the Colombian entrepreneur David Vélez, who just built a, you know, really a world-class company. Um, there's so many other businesses that have been started in Brazil, in Mexico, in Chile, Argentina, Colombia, that are really world-class, that have raised money from, you know, some of the top-tier investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia, um, and others. Um, and many of those companies are crossing borders, you know, have expanded not only throughout Latin America but into other markets in the U.S. Europe, Asia, um, you know, world-class entrepreneurs, um, who have deep understanding of their local markets but have also built platforms that can cross borders. And I expect to see more of that. Um, obviously it comes with a few outliers on the both the success side and on the failure side, um, but, you know, so does the United States. And I think that's what makes the United States a great successful market, is that, you know, tolerance, um, an appetite for risk to, you know, hit some home runs. And, you know, some of the best home run hitters also led the league in strikeouts the same year. So, you know, I think you have to be sure that, you know, you're prepared to— when you swing for the fences, you've got to be prepared to strike out every now and then as well.

So why stay in LATAM then if the US have produced like that much more startups and you're a competitive guy, a banker, a capitalist, right? What do you see in, in there? Why, why stay there? Or is, is it the heart things? A woman got your heart and, uh, that has you stay here?

Listen, um, stay tuned because, you know, I still can get back into the United States with my U.S. passport. We would love to make an acquisition in the United States. I think it would be very natural for us. There's a lot of examples of Latin American companies that have been very acquisitive in the United States. I mean, think about the Brazilian AmBev, which purchased Budweiser. And if that isn't an emblematic American brand— so I'm not sure we're going to go after QuickBooks anytime soon, but, you know, we definitely would love to do an acquisition in the United States. It's a market, you know, that I know well. I was born in Boston, Massachusetts, grew up in Florida. Um, and, you know, we would love to do something in the U.S. market, but with a lot of humility, we feel like we got plenty to do here, keep it busy in Mexico, Chile, and Argentina, and that's going to be where the focus is in the short term because there's a lot of Spanish speakers in the US, right?

What is that, 30% of the population? That's crazy.

It's a big number. It's definitely a big number. Yeah.

What's, uh, Endeavor? I think you're a board member there, and the Startup Chile was big on the LATAM scene for quite some time, right? Like, tell us a bit more about that.

Yeah, I mean, Startup Chile was really the first government-sponsored, uh, seed investor in the world. And so when you think about all the startups that we've seen in Puerto Rico, in Europe, in other markets in the United States, founded in part and success has many fathers and mothers, but founded in part by Nico Shea here and really put Chile on the map. I was lucky enough to be a mentor there for many years. Endeavor is an amazing global organization. Which was started here in Latin America, which promotes entrepreneurship, scale-ups, capital formation, training, and best practices for founders and other entrepreneurs based in New York City with now a global reach. I've been lucky enough to be involved with that organization both in the United States and particularly here in Chile for, oh boy, probably since almost when it was started in 1999. And, you know, those are two organizations that I think took a very long view about building networks and communities and then consolidating clusters of density around startups and scale-ups. And, you know, I just love to give back in the little free time I have. And every time I talk to another entrepreneur, I always take something away from that conversation.

So yeah, no, I think it was definitely a success. Um, some people would say like, or the taxpayers, right, like why are we funding startups? But I think the obvious answer to that is that it creates more jobs, creates innovation, right, and, um, creates sort of a brain drain as well. I can see like, uh, I remember some people going down to Chile like from the US to Chile, like giving them a reason to go to be there and spend their capital in Chile, which is a genius strategy. So why aren't other countries doing that?

Yeah, I think it, I think it has a bad, perhaps a bit of a bad, bad reputation for some reason. But, you know, the rules were very clear. All the money needed to be reinvested into the Chilean economy. Um, it created some amazing companies. I mean, Fractal is one of those companies which came out of there. There are many others. I mean, if you look at, you know, I mean, when we first invested in Nubox 10 years ago, I think we had 80 employees, knowledge workers here in, in Chile. Now we have close to 200 knowledge workers here in Chile. So all of those, you know, the knock-on effect and collateral effect of, you know, growing, creating jobs, um, and very high-paying jobs, um, and then, you know, all of the work that we do to make our customers more successful. There have been some great successes coming out of Startup Chile. I think the taxpayers have won. I think Chile has won. Some of us have ended up staying here and building businesses because of Startup Chile. It's a great source of talent. Yeah, and I would say that in some extent it happens in other ways, I think, in other countries, but the sort of direct deposit is something which I think was very revolutionary at the time and, um, I still think has a lot of merit, right?

And the founders that it attracted from the world was pretty cool also, not just to build a company in a foreign country but just to attract them, exchange students down, go spend some time in Chile and discovering Chile, right? And Latam, it's an amazing place to be. You've lived there for past couple of decades, right? Like, I've been to Chile, it was crazy amazing, uh, the, the vineyards next to the sea. It's like a modern economy, is not too hot as well, right? Like, uh, how would you describe Chile also versus Argentina and all these, uh, other cool places in LATAM?

I'm not going to start to compare countries, but I can talk about how great, uh, Chile is. I can also talk about how great Argentina is, so I'll talk about Chile. Um, yeah, I mean, listen, it's an export-based economy, very free market, very clear, transparent rules of engagement, and incredible public infrastructure, particularly around the Santiago area. Great source of talent and super hardworking, but we also know how to have fun every now and then. And, you know, I feel incredibly proud to be part of this country. I've spent, you know, almost the last 15 years living here, um, and, you know, I see myself, um, staying in Chile forever. I think, you know, we see a lot of promise in the economy, and, um, and we just really enjoy being part of the ecosystem here. And, um, you know, we feel like we can continue to make impact, uh, in a small way every day. Uh, you know, we have almost 100,000 small businesses administered on our platform. And they issue $1 billion of electronic invoices every month. That's $12 billion a year issued on our platform. We process 400,000 payslips, our customers do, every month. You know, those are 400,000 employees who have their payroll calculated on our platform. And, you know, we feel like if we can make our customers more successful and grow, then we can make Chile more successful and grow.

What's next for you in terms of goals this year? What do you want to accomplish after that big of a growth? I guess like potential acquisitions on your radar, like, uh, what are your top goals for this year?

Yeah, well, you know, we, we have a lot. We got big dreams. Uh, we try to break them down into small goals. I would say, you know, we continue to invest in, um, becoming a super company, you know, an AI-native business around 3 verticals and We have plans to push on all three of those. That's how we build software, how we talk and interact and communicate with our customers, and what our software does for customers. Um, I also support our businesses in Mexico and Argentina, and I plan to spend more time with those businesses over the next 3 to 4 months before the end of the year. Um, and, and then, yeah, we're always looking for, you know, acquisition targets, uh, you know, uh entrepreneurs that we want to become part of something, uh, larger. Um, you know, we've looked at a number of opportunities in Mexico, Chile, Argentina, even expanding the new countries. But right now the focus will be on being sure that our customers are more and more successful on our platform. Um, and we're just trying to really reinvent our business workflow by workflow, figure out where the bottlenecks are, look where the bottlenecks are that our customers have and with our products and, and open those up. Um, so it's a lot of just focus, you know, nose to the grindstone, in the weeds, trying to support our, our, our employees and our, our customers to be more and more successful by taking advantage of AI.

Love it. Matt, where can people find out more about you?

Yeah, so I'm on LinkedIn, uh, Matthew Cole. You can find me there, CEO of Suma. Um, my email is matt.cole@nubox.com. Um, and those are probably the two best ways to, to find me. And if anybody wants to talk about entrepreneurship and tech in Latin America, uh, happy to. And if anybody's looking to buy accounting software, um, or business management software, please look us up at Nubox in Chile, Binde in Mexico, and Colpi in Argentina.

As Matt and Charles Cormier for another