Julio Martínez, Co-founder & CEO at Abacum on how he tripled revenue while keeping headcount flat

0:00Welcome back. We have got Julio from Abacom here. Hello, how are you doing? Thank you for joining me.

0:04Julio Martínez:Doing great. Thank you so much for having me. It is my absolute pleasure. Now, before we kick in, kick off, can you just give me a quick introduction into who you are and what you're building? Yeah, I'm Julio. I'm the co-founder and the CEO of Abacom. I've spent most of my career in finance down in the trenches from investment banking, but also operational FDNA. And what we're building is Abacom. Abacom is an AI native financial planning and analysis platform. And we empower finance teams to become strategic drivers to the business. We enable them to drive performance and have a meaningful impact in the business.

0:43amazing and that you know for context i the first startup i joined as in i did a lot of strategic finance a lot of metrics reporting um going deep into the numbers so you know i wish i had had it when i was you know in the trenches in the early days of the first startup i joined um but the first thing i want to talk about is your series b race so you raised you know a huge series b 60 million dollars uh led by scale venture partners one of the first things i want to ask is what enabled you to raise that money?

1:12Julio Martínez:Look, I think CFOs and finance teams are really eager for change these days, right? We are in the times of AI and everybody is looking for technology to really multiply and enhance our game. So I think probably that market tailwinds were a key driver for us to raise a serious be to meet that demand with urgency, right? So of course, it's not only market conditions. Of course, it is also a strong performance from the business. So we had tripled our ERR with flat headcount, right? Without relevant incremental investments into the business. So that tells you a lot about, you know, driving efficient growth.

1:56Julio Martínez:And we were very proud of that achievement because, hey, that put us first of all in a position of very high sustainability. So, we were not in a need to actually be racing. But it was not only sustainability. It is also what we sell to our customers, right? Hey, we are making finance teams amazing capital allocators. We give you the visibility and the control to really drive that efficient growth. And it was great to achieve it ourselves. And can we touch on how you were able to triple revenue without headcount growth? Was that, I don't know, more efficient use of your GTM? Was that streamlined operations?

2:38What enabled you to grow revenue so quickly without having to have additional investment?

2:43Julio Martínez:I think there is a number of drivers there. Look, to be honest, I think it comes down to all the tactical decisions that you end up making in the day-to-day. We have high standards for ROI and every product investment, every go-to-market investment. It goes through a serious process on what's the business impact that you're expecting out of it. And we've really embedded that into our culture. People think like owners and behave like owners. And we have ample budgets. We have experimental legends also for us to play and learn and grow faster in the future. But we understand very well the trade-offs.

3:27Julio Martínez:And more importantly, from a cultural perspective, we have all these business conversations. And, hey, efficiency is not a word that belongs to finance. It belongs to the business, right? We all want to grow. But oftentimes in tech, to be honest, we lose sight that what truly matters is strong fundamentals. We are here not to be the fastest growing business and all that is awesome. Right. And if you can do that efficiently, that's fantastic. But what matters ultimately is to build strong foundations into business that compound all the time. And if you're here for the long term, those sprints that make you inefficient don't really matter.

4:09Julio Martínez:What you want to be doing is embedding and creating that culture that prioritizes efficiency in your growth motion. And how do you build a culture where efficiency is, as you mentioned, not just the financiers' responsibility, but it's everybody's responsibility? This is how you build anything really cultural related, right? So it needs to be at the very top of the agenda of the founders and the leadership team. And so, is that, for example, are you constantly talking about the fundamental metrics of the business and you're talking about whether that's burn or cost expenditure, whether that's revenue retention?

4:48Are those things something that you talk about all the time in the business?

4:52Julio Martínez:Yes. So, we have a very transparent culture as well. So, we are very transparent with our financial metrics. And of course, we have a North Star metric, which is going to be a net new ARR growth. So we are here to grow and to grow fast. But we always qualify that metric with a lot of core efficiency or sustainability metrics. And that is going to be, of course, burn multiple, but also payback for more go to market. You might be looking into strong NDR for instance, or GRR for strong foundations in the business. And obviously, as you know, There are many, many metrics in B2B SaaS that are very classic and everybody knows them.

5:35Julio Martínez:But it's very important that the team is looking at you and seeing that you pay very real and very serious attention to all these metrics as well and not only growth. Got it. $60 million is a lot of money to raise, especially for a very efficient business that didn't need a lot of money or any additional money to triple their revenue. What are you going to be using that? And like, yeah, I guess what are you going to be spending that money on? Yeah. So, hey, we have ambitious plans. And, you know, who knows? Maybe this is the last round that we raised. And it's amazing to be in that position, right?

6:13Julio Martínez:Where you have a very strong balance sheet to tackle your ambitious plans. Of course, a lot is going to be to product, right? We continue building a multi-agentic AI experience that truly anticipates those business needs, that finance teams and their peers have. And then proactively suggest actions, more in product days. And we continue investing in the scalability and flexibility of our modeling engine. And I don't want to get very technical here, but, hey, very fast and meaningful scenario planning is really critical here. And this is expensive to build, right? And it takes time. We are also investing in go-to-market.

6:53Julio Martínez:So, of course, and we've been public about it. Like, you know, we are moving very fast in the U.S. market. also in Europe, also in other regions. So, yeah, so we are also investing there. But again, you know, judging every investment decision, every bet with the lens of, you know, hey, is this efficient? Does this make sense from my foundation's perspective? Got it. Can we touch quickly on your footprint in the US? You know, I read your article, I think, in Startups Magazine about kind of expanding into the US. And I think you mentioned in there that you never launched in the US. Can you tell me a bit about how you started selling, what that pull was, how you gradually built up a footprint there?

7:36Julio Martínez:Yes. My co-founder Jorge and I always had in mind to build a global international business. We knew FP &A was international, didn't have any localization problems, right? So, we don't do accounting we don't do taxes we don't know what you need to or hr right where you need to localize about your product we knew abtas international from the get-go so we could travel fast so we were obsessed about going global from the beginning as a result i think two of our first five customers came from the us right so we never really launched even when we launched in the us even when we started a company out of Barcelona, we were going after US businesses, UK businesses, German businesses, and so on, right?

8:26Julio Martínez:We wanted to have that proof point and actually learn to build a international business from the get-go. So that's why we didn't go for a big splash. Hey, we had a strong European player and now we're launching in the US. And this is not for us. it was a steady incremental drop-by-drop type of strategy where we were in the US from the get-go. And now you're based in New York, is that right? Yes, I'm based in New York with my family. Go on. And what was the point? Did you reach a critical point where you then decided, okay, one of us needs to be in New York to really push us forward here? And what happened?

9:06Julio Martínez:So, look, I think it comes a point in time where you see the different metrics in the business and you see, you know, hey, which markets are growing the fastest, which markets have maybe a little bit more maturity when it comes to the buying process and understanding the problem space. You also see, you know, different talent dynamics. And then at some point in time, the decision was, hey, the U.S. is, of course, a huge market and there is a high element of maturity in the buying process when it comes to FP &A. So we decided to commit to the market, right? And I think there is no better sign of committing to a market than having one of the founders moving there with their family.

9:49Julio Martínez:And the reality is that oftentimes customers, especially at the beginning, right? And more importantly, talent, really want to see your commitment to a market. So if I'm going to bet certain years of my career to your company, how meaningful is this for you and your trajectory as well? So you need to show that, hey, we belong here, we came here for the long term, I moved my wife, I moved my three kids. And that gave us also, I think, tailwinds. Of course, you need to understand the nuances in the market. I'm not saying that the only way of understanding the US market is moving to the US market.

10:25Julio Martínez:But hey, let's face it, when you become a local, yeah, you deepen your knowledge of the market. Yeah, of course. And it's such a, as you said, it's a sign of such a big commitment that you're making to that market and to your customers there. On a personal level, how did you find it? You know, as you said, uprooting your wife, your kids. How was that for you on a personal level? You know, you know how it is, right? The first year was tough, especially for my kids. and you know how they say children adapt very fast. Well, mine didn't. So it was, you know, I got lucky there. So whatever. So it was a tough first year.

11:01Julio Martínez:They didn't adjust the school very well. And they're, you know, anyway. But hey, we are taking the long-term perspective here and now we are settled. They are perfectly happy and my wife is adapted. So all good. No, that's amazing to hear. Yeah, it must be really challenging. And yeah, kudos to you for making that leap. and it seems to be paying dividends for the business. I think I read that the US is now both your biggest and your fastest growing market. Yes. Yeah, the US has become our biggest market from an era perspective, but also the fastest growing. And I think it's a true testament. We are hiding left and right here in the US right now.

11:37Julio Martínez:And things are working very well in this market. And what do you think it is about the US market that has made that growth happen so quickly? There is an element of size. That's a reality. For us, Europe is also very, very, very big, right? Because we don't need to localize by country, right? So, you know, it's similar, but still the US is a bigger market. I think even more importantly, they are a little bit more mature in their adoption to technology. CFOs and finance teams, I mean. I think the U.S. buyer, when it comes to finance software, is a bit more mature in the sense of, hey, I understand very well my problem spaces in the CFO tech stack.

12:29Julio Martínez:I understand accounting. I understand F &A, accounts payables, receivables. I know how I want to build my tech stack from the beginning. I know this is going to be my roadmap. And now maybe I did an ERP and now I'm going to do FP &A. And I know that my decision correctly is A, B, C, D. And this is going to be down to business and features. And then show me your product. Because we are so strong from a product perspective. And we feel so much differentiation in the product. And we have rating customers. We win a lot of business. Our win rate in the U.S. is huge. And it's not because we have any specific stuff built in for the US market, but because, you know, hey, they are down to business, they are buying, they want the best product, and let's get this done.

13:12Amazing. And can I ask, why did you choose New York over San Francisco?

13:16Julio Martínez:Yeah, that's a great question. We love San Francisco as well, right? But for us, New York was a no-brainer, right? It's booming. Tech here is growing very, very fast. New York is the financial center of the Western world, continues to be. There is a very strong talent density in, you know, if you think of, hey, most people concentrated in Manhattan, a tiny island. And then, you know, so you have a lot of talent density. Also think of it, we launched in Europe, right? And we still have strong, very strong European operations and teams and we belong there. And we think of ourselves as a global business.

13:58Julio Martínez:So from a management perspective, we also thought, hey, New York feels amazing as a center to cover Europe, but also the West Coast in the U.S. as well. If you choose San Francisco, then you are nine hours apart from Europe, which makes the overlap very difficult. Right. And I've done that for a while in the past. And, you know, one of the two sides have a miserable life. So it doesn't really work for us. Yeah, it's brutal. I used to work at Deal and their product team. Deal is entirely remote. And you would always have times where you'd be on calls with people in California or the Philippines and Indonesia.

14:37And it's brutal. It's absolutely brutal. Yeah, so it makes total sense. I also want to talk about your profile or your presence on LinkedIn. I've seen you post a lot on LinkedIn. You even kind of share playbooks. You're very open about kind of like product development, what's going on, and almost becoming a bit of a thought leader in the FP &A space as well. What's the rationale behind posting frequently on LinkedIn? What do you want to get out of it? I think posting LinkedIn responds to a need for us to contribute to the finance community.

15:15Julio Martínez:For us, it's all about building community. Community is incredibly powerful in anything you do, right? And of course, for instance, we went through Y Combinator and having a founder community truly changed our perspective of things and our trajectory. So the goal of doing what we do in LinkedIn, but also, you know, in some other forums, right, and when we organize dinners or community events or when we participate in what other people are doing, we believe, and look, I've been close to 20 years in finance, right, different roles and you know I saw that need of having more peer support more practical insights more tactical advice less fluff and probably you know our approach as well to it is FMA is you know hey it's not high level it's very tactical frameworks and very real-world examples that we get from our teammates and ourselves so no fluff and I think this is really a region and the feedback we get from finance leaders is hey you know it's really resonating so a really authentic genuine tone and an approach to contributing to the finance community look I look at our marketing peers sales peers and you know they have a lot of groups they are very well organized in finance you know it's starting to happen today.

16:41Julio Martínez:I think it's happening increasingly, but hey, we are living behind. So, this is our way to contribute. And of course, when you do that as well, life is long and wise. And of course, then people think of you when they need to consider an FPNX solution. Got it. Okay. So, it's a bit of marketing, a bit of being that thought leader and a bit of just kind of sharing useful and helpful frameworks and building that sort of finance community. You started your career in investment banking, very corporate, very traditional. And I'm similar. I did mine in strategy consulting. I started my career in strategy consulting.

17:21How did that environment or that corporate environment prepare you or teach you, or did it teach you that you're still using today in your kind of like tech founder life?

17:33Julio Martínez:Yeah. Hey, you know, I think there is a stigma with the corporate life that I sense sometimes in tech. And, you know, I think it's most of the time an amazing school, right? An amazing school of what to do and what not to do. So I think that investment banking preferred me very well. I think I embraced from the very beginning and understood very well what excellence and highest standards and operational rigor mean in your day-to-day. At some point in time, when I grew in my career, I also faced politics and I understood, hey, this is something that kills companies and probably then gets you thinking, how do you build a culture that is resilient to politics where transparency and where decision-making is run in a different way.

18:34Julio Martínez:So, I think the corporate life, no stigmas there. I think it prepared us very well to what we're building today. No, amazing. I couldn't agree more. You're right on the sort of like hard work, high standards, attention to detail. Corporates have almost got that down to a T. And you're right, you learn from the lack of innovation, the politics and the bureaucracy, how not to do things in startups. Like, I'm conscious we're running out of time. I want to ask one more question, which is, you know, you've just raised a big Series B. You mentioned you may not need to raise ever again. But if you do, if you're looking forward at a Series C potentially one, two, three years down the line, what kind of milestones or achievements do you want to hit to enable you to get to that point?

19:20Julio Martínez:We are in the quest of becoming the standard strategic finance solution for the mid-market across geographies. And today, we have already become the new entrant, the new player, AI native, that is the standard. So we've built that brand, that reputation, we're in the mid-market, which is what we target. And this is companies from, say, 200 employees to 30 ,000 employees. So we want to double down there. I think it's underestimated how focusing on your segment and your value proposition compounds over time. We have become the best product and hopefully the best brand as well. And this is what we're building for the mid-market.

20:10Julio Martínez:And this is what we want to anchor and to consolidate. Once you accomplish that, hey, the best, the reference, the top of mind financial planning and analysis platform for all this broad spectrum across geographies. And we're talking here about Europe, the US, of course, but also Latam. We have customers in Africa, in Asia, so most Australians, some other countries in Southeast Asia. So, hey, like this is a broad endeavor. Once we accomplish that, then we'll think of subsequent expansions. But again, we are here for the long run. So a lot to accomplish over the coming years. No, I bet. And I love the ambition and I love the approach and the scale of the problem that you're tackling.

20:56So, Julio, thank you so much for joining me. It's been an absolute pleasure to speak and I look forward to kind of seeing Abercambe grow even more.

21:05Julio Martínez:Thank you so much, Ed. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye.