By Riley Kaminer
As we close in on Miami Tech Week/Month, we’re sure your calendars are filling up fast. But there’s one month long happening that you might want to keep on your radar, from Miami startup Lazo.
On April 8th, the company will launch the second edition of their Founders House: a physical space for founders, investors, and ecosystem contributors to meet, collaborate, and take refuge from the flurry of events around town. The House will host a series of events as diverse as our ecosystem, from a VC LatAm Summit to a women investing in women founders panel to various wellness activities and beyond.
Lazo founder and CEO Juan Manuel Barrero told Refresh Miami that the team expects upwards of a thousand people to walk through the Founders House’s front door, including upwards of 300 founders slated to stop by the launch event.
“For our customers, it’s really important to have the opportunity to meet VCs,” Barrero said, noting that many of the events are likely to attract even more VCs than founders – a testament both to Miami’s ecosystem as well as Lazo’s network.
This aligns with Lazo’s ultimate goal, as Barrero described it: “making founders’ lives easier.” Its platform aims to streamline back office functions like legal, bookkeeping, tax, payroll, finance, and fundraising operations.
Their typical customers are early stage startups from Miami, Latinos in the US, and LatAm founders breaking into the US. They are already targeting customers from other US startup ecosystems and planning to launch an additional house during NY Tech Week.
And the market is responding accordingly. “Lazo has been growing an average of 15% each month,” Barrero shared. The company now has upwards of 700 recurring customers. Its workforce has also roughly doubled since we last caught up with them, with 60 employees overall. Six of these FTEs are based in Miami, up from just one or two last year.
“Our team in Miami is growing,” Barrero said. “I’m proud to be a Miami headquartered company – building from Miami.”
Suffice it to say that Barrero, an Argentine native, has world domination on his mind. Or at least something along those lines: “We are expecting to grow more in New York, Texas, and San Francisco this year.”
Lazo also expects to attract companies from other markets outside of LatAm such as potentially Africa or the Middle East. Barrero is hoping to triple the size of Lazo this year, thanks both to this geographic expansion as well as launching additional product offerings.
“We’re now seen as a bridge to bring together communities of startups and investors,” he said. “We have grown a lot in Miami, with customers from Miami, with solutions for Miami startups. Our next goal is to develop internationally.”
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