Runa Jumps From Mexico to Brazil

After four successful years in Mexico, startup Runa is preparing to move to a new market: Brazil. Founded by entrepreneur Courtney McColgan, Runa provides a series of HR services including payroll management, performance and attendance tracking, insurance and other services through an automated platform. Before its arrival, Mexican companies had to calculate all payments through excel, then go to a bank to make each payment and finally report their payroll to the government through a government website. Runa offers an alternative that allows them to skip all this bureaucracy.

Last year, Runa was named one of the 10 most promising startups by Líder Empresarial thanks to its completely cloud-based human resources software solution. To McColgan, Latin America is a thriving market, rich with opportunities, particularly in terms of technology. Why? The difference lies in the impact startups have in Latin America against Silicon Valley, she explained in an article for MBN.

In the US, startups end up making incremental improvements to an already efficient way of doing things. While they may increase the slope of the curve, they do not move the line. In Latin America, the opposite happens, startups solve real problems in society. "What I really liked about Mexico is that it has a very vibrant community of entrepreneurs and a very good startup scene, the best I have seen. There are many people who have previously worked in startups or technology companies, which was a little different from other countries in Latin America, where we could not find such talent," said Courtney McColgan, Founder and CEO of Runa HR, according to MBN.

In 2H21, the company plans to continue expanding through Latin America, reports Forbes Mexico. “In 2H21, we will finally open in Brazil. We have already been working there for a year, mainly trying to understand local labor laws to the best of our ability. This has not been simple at all because they change yearly, but we are already working to address that,” McColgan told Forbes Mexico. "The Brazilian market has always been within our objectives and it will officially be the first country within our international expansion plans.”

McColgan calls Latin America the next startup frontier as the future of the region is promising for technology and data analysis, she said in an article she wrote for MBN. “Forty-five percent of companies confirmed they are implementing or plan to implement robotization in the next 12 months,” she concluded after surveying 375 HR executives.