Latin American fintech startup Solvento on Wednesday announced the release of Solvento Audita, an AI-powered auditing and invoicing software to provide invoicing transparency throughout the supply chain.
As part of the launch, Solvento also announced it has taken on a $50 million debt facility from investment platform Lendable along with raising a $3.5 million seed extension led by Quona Capital, with participation from Dynamo Ventures, Ironspring Ventures, Proeza Ventures, and Zenda VC to expand its current Latin American lending product.
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“We unfortunately still live in a paper world,” said Jaime Tabachnik, co-founder and CEO of Solvento. “Shippers don’t benefit from eliminating the paperwork because the inefficient process often gains them more time to pay. That is why we believe in our mission of acquiring this working capital to make these processes digital. Recognition of the root cause of slow payments has inspired us because we believe we can break these paradigms, push digitization and hugely impact the Latin American economy.”
Mexico City-based Solvento has raised $10 million in equity since its founding in 2021. The company has also paid back $3 million from a previous debt facility.
By leveraging APIs into transportation management systems and other popular Latin American applications like WhatsApp, Solvento Audita can automatically recognize and verify the documentation required for invoicing, ensuring the accuracy of the information requested from shippers. This automated process replaces the common manual practice undertaken by shippers and brokers.
Regulations need AI’s support
Tabachnik said Mexican tax regulations have become more complex, needing AI more than ever for proper invoicing.
“We believe the most risks in the industry come from internal fraud and human error. The best practice to avoid those problems is to provide an outside auditor and technology to find those errors. Solvento Audita adds both of those to your workflows creating a sole source of truth,” Tabachnik told FreightWaves.
The Carta Porte, mandated by the Mexican Tax Administration Service (SAT) since January 2022, is a digital document accompanying the Digital Tax Receipt by Internet (CFDI) to improve control over goods transportation in Mexico. Applicable across various transport modes, it replaces traditional documents like CFDI and waybills, facilitating the digitization of processes. All entities engaged in transporting goods bear the responsibility of ensuring accurate reporting.
Enforcement of an updated version, Carta Porte 3.0, began on Nov. 25, with a grace period until Jan. 1, providing users with time to adjust to modifications to enhance the completeness and accuracy of consignment note information.
One reasoning behind these regulatory changes is to mitigate contraband issues and fraud, which are also challenges afflicting domestic supply chains in the United States.
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“This is a huge opportunity for Mexico to be the biggest trading partner with the U.S. and drive all this new investment. We are very excited to show companies how much profit they are missing out on with the software we have built. We are also very excited to have an incredible social impact by helping carriers grow their business that has lacked access to working capital for decades,” Tabachnik said.
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