Five Questions With: Cometa

Mexican startup Cometa, whose core business is managing the administrative and financial affairs of private schools, recently launched its payment management platform and announced the closing of a US$5 million round backed by Kaszek, Reach Capital, Homebrew, Latitud, Investo VC, Investo VC, 500 Startups and Salkantay Ventures. Andrés Benavides, the CEO, answered Contxto’s questionnaire.

What problem does your startup solve?
The owner of a school is usually passionate about education, and although they are good entrepreneurs, the administrative part is the one that generates more workload. Most of them suffer from late payments. On the other hand, parents have payment methods that are impractical; many times, they have to go to school and stand in long lines that are inefficient. They fall behind in their payments, and they pile up. Cometa automates collection processes and facilitates payments for families, reducing delinquency by 52% and improving the uncollectible rate.

How is it different from others that have tried this idea before?
Most software that has targeted the private school sector has focused on the academic side. That is, they create content that digitizes the learning experience or provide educational management tools that facilitate the delivery of grades, and newsletters, among other things, more aligned to the academic part. Our focus is to leverage the business components, which are the oxygen behind the operation and where there are fewer quality tools.

How do you generate revenue?
Our main source of revenue is through the payments that are generated on the platform. We see this as key, as it generates an alignment of incentives: the school wants to charge more, and we want the tool to be the best and simplest to optimize collection. At the end of the day, this forces us to leverage data to generate best practices that ensure optimal collection in the long term.

Which Latin American startup do you admire?

Within the education sector, I have a lot of admiration for Crehana, because it started in a very different context, where few believed in the region and in the education sector. The resilience of that team and the achievements they have had have facilitated the path of many entrepreneurs who have come after us.

What is the next step for the company?
The main focus is to consolidate in Mexico, getting more clients who believe in our project. Once we achieve that, we will be on our way to creating a company that will change the reality of the educational sector in our region. 

Main image: Cometa.

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