By Riley Kaminer
Felix Rodriguez comes from a family of small business owners. “Starting our own business was my family’s American dream,” he told Refresh Miami. “When I was growing up, I got a chance to see my dad and my uncles and aunts with their own businesses – and see the effect they had on the community.”
Rodriguez himself got bit with the startup bug, having launched, scaled, and exited a diverse range of nine businesses – from a veterinarian platform to a marketing firm to a customer acquisition solution. The thread through all of these was Rodriguez’s deep understanding of the challenges facing SMBs.
“SMBs need tools to solve immediate problems and provide immediate gratification,” he said, emphasizing the default need for startups to move fast. One of the main pain points: keeping an SMB’s financial house in order.
“We’ve always had to have our books done,” Rodriguez asserted. “We always had to understand the levers. Whether it was we wanted to get a loan, or we wanted to get investment for our business, or eventually even sell – we sold three businesses – you really have to understand the levers that helped your business grow. The only way to do that is by having a grasp on your numbers and being current.”
The reality, though, is not so simple. SMBs too often deprioritize back office functions until it’s too late. But Rodriguez has a solution in the form of his Miami-based startup, Finally. The company provides a suite of accounting and finance tools enabling businesses to more easily keep the pulse on their key metrics.
Integrating with all the tools you’d expect – Stripe, Xero, Gusto, and many more – Finally provides users with everything from bookkeeping and payroll to billpay and expense management. Finally even offers a Visa corporate card that ties directly into their platform, with no personal guarantees required.
“SMBs are overlooked,” said Rodriguez. He said there are still many pockets of opportunities for startups looking to help these customers. One major blindspot in the SMB space, according to Rodriguez: “There are a lot of solutions that solve single pain points as opposed to Finally, where we’re going out and solving a broader problem. Customers really want an all-in-one platform with one simple, beautiful UI that doesn’t take them eons to learn.”
Investors see the appeal, with Finally having raised $10 million in February. Previously, the company raised a $95 million debt/equity Series A, in March 2022. Finally told us that it is dealing with over a thousand new customers. Since launching in early 2019, Finally has expanded to around 160 employees, about half of whom are based in South Florida.
“We’re seeing a lot of talent from everywhere want to come to South Florida. There’s no shortage of talent here, and we’re seeing a lot of investors come down for meetings,” shared Rodriguez.
His advice for fellow startup founders? “There’s no better time to build. Lots of opportunities come out of tough times, so just keep focused on the metrics that matter and keep going.”
Photo at top of post: from left, Finally co-founders Edwin Mejia, Glennys Rodriguez, and her husband, CEO Felix Rodriguez.
READ MORE ON REFRESH MIAMI:
- Finally secures $10M to develop AI-powered small business bookkeeping platform
- Flex secures $20M equity and $100M debt fundraise to build a one-stop-shop financial hub for SMBs
- Proptech startup Downpayments launches with $32.8M in debt and equity funding in tow
- Propense lands $3M seed to propel AI-powered platform for B2B cross-selling
- Xendoo’s digital accounting platform is used by nearly 1,000 businesses in 13 countries. What’s ahead for this team?
- Koywe’s answer to slow international payments started with a lifelong friendship - September 9, 2026
- Split Pay raises $125M to give your paycheck better timing - September 9, 2026
- PRIMA raises $5M to turn hot tables into a referral business - September 4, 2026