Joel Vicient studied Technical Engineering in IT in the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, and soon after finishing his degree decided he wanted to work for himself. At the age of only 25, this young entrepreneur from Tortosa had already founded his first start-up, a technology consultancy providing services to small companies in the Tarragona area. It was a small start-up, with only five employees, but Vicient was able to see how much time was lost in paperwork and processing receipts for trips and bills.
As a result, he came up with the idea of developing an app that would allow for the capturing and digitising of bills and receipts with a mobile phone. "I could not understand how it was not possible to take a picture of a receipt with your smartphone and thus eliminate the paper element," says Vicient while sipping a coffee in a hotel in Barcelona's Plaça Catalunya. Vicient had just arrived from Tortosa, where Captio is based. The start-up began a little over a year ago to develop this new technology, so far without any competitors in Spain, with some 35 employees and more than 300 corporate clients.
"The idea was well received from the beginning, bearing in mind that the tax office, the Agència Tributària (AEAT), will from 2017 oblige all companies with a turnover higher than six million euros a year to declare their bills and receipts in real time, within a maximum of four days," says the entrepreneur. "And that is only possible if the company has digitising facilities. It seems as if the tax office is saying: use Captio!" he adds.
The only authorised app
In its first year, Captio has doubled its team and is growing at a rate of 400% per year. It has offices in Tortosa, Barcelona and Madrid, and has clients of the stature of Bankinter, Bodegues Torres, Puig, Telefónica and the Barcelona city council. "We are still the only app authorised by the State to use photos from smartphones or tablets to digitise data and save them automatically to the company's accounting system," says the Captio CEO, who founded the company with money from selling the technology consultant he had set up years earlier.
At the beginning of 2015, Captio managed to raise a tranche of investment worth 2.3 million euros, mainly from Bankinter and the capital risk firm Kibo Ventures, along with the American fund THCAP. The funding included advice from the lawyers' office, Rousaud Costas Duran (RCD). At that time, Captio was in a phase of full commercial expansion, after signing an agreement with Telefónica so that the operator could offer its corporate clients digital technology for the automatic management of company expenses.
Thus, Captio became part of Telefónica Digital España's Programa de Socis Comercials. "It is a win-win agreement, given that companies such as Telefónica need to offer additional services to their clients to set them apart them from the competition," says Vicient. The following step for the company is international expansion. Captio plans to open offices in Paris before the end of the year so that it can begin to penetrate the French market by adapting the software to the neighbouring country's tax system.
Efficient accounting
"At base, our technology allows for the easier handling of company paperwork, while for the tax office it is an efficient tool for more quickly processing and optimising the declaration of VAT tax," says Vicient, who uses his smartphone to take a photo of the coffee receipt in the Hotel Pulitzer. With a single click, the app automatically reads the basic information on the bill (quantity, data, VAT) and stores it in the Captio archive. Once the expense is approved by the accounting department, the data is incorporated into the company's accounting system (SAP, Oracle, etc) and can then be sent to the tax office. Another advantage of Captio is that it allows for the recovery of VAT by using the receipt of purchase, without having to wait for a bill.
"To start with, we wanted to mainly address self-employed and freelance workers, but we have ended up focusing on large companies, with lots of employees on the move," says Vicient. The start-up has just signed an agreement with Hailo, the mobile app for booking taxis, which will allow users to automatically register the travel expense without the need to ask for a bill. "We integrate the management of the receipt directly into the system, without the need for any paper," says Vicient.
Excel still the rival to beat
Despite having almost no competitors – the only companies offering similar services are the US firms Expensify and Concur (which have been acquired by SAP) - Vicient is aware that the "main competitor continues to be the Excel spreadsheet". "We are an example of how, from any point in the world, such as Tortosa, you can undertake large-scale project," says Vicient, who is proud that many talented people in the Ebre area can find in Captio an opportunity to work from their home towns.
With almost 40,000 users and 300 corporate clients, Captio's aim is to continue investing in innovation to become the leading mobile app for digitising bills in the world. For the moment, there are no plans for a further round of investment. "Many entrepreneurs are obsessed by raising capital, when the most important thing is to focus on sales. Clients have to be the main source of revenue," concludes Vicient.
As a result, he came up with the idea of developing an app that would allow for the capturing and digitising of bills and receipts with a mobile phone. "I could not understand how it was not possible to take a picture of a receipt with your smartphone and thus eliminate the paper element," says Vicient while sipping a coffee in a hotel in Barcelona's Plaça Catalunya. Vicient had just arrived from Tortosa, where Captio is based. The start-up began a little over a year ago to develop this new technology, so far without any competitors in Spain, with some 35 employees and more than 300 corporate clients.
"The idea was well received from the beginning, bearing in mind that the tax office, the Agència Tributària (AEAT), will from 2017 oblige all companies with a turnover higher than six million euros a year to declare their bills and receipts in real time, within a maximum of four days," says the entrepreneur. "And that is only possible if the company has digitising facilities. It seems as if the tax office is saying: use Captio!" he adds.
The only authorised app
In its first year, Captio has doubled its team and is growing at a rate of 400% per year. It has offices in Tortosa, Barcelona and Madrid, and has clients of the stature of Bankinter, Bodegues Torres, Puig, Telefónica and the Barcelona city council. "We are still the only app authorised by the State to use photos from smartphones or tablets to digitise data and save them automatically to the company's accounting system," says the Captio CEO, who founded the company with money from selling the technology consultant he had set up years earlier.
At the beginning of 2015, Captio managed to raise a tranche of investment worth 2.3 million euros, mainly from Bankinter and the capital risk firm Kibo Ventures, along with the American fund THCAP. The funding included advice from the lawyers' office, Rousaud Costas Duran (RCD). At that time, Captio was in a phase of full commercial expansion, after signing an agreement with Telefónica so that the operator could offer its corporate clients digital technology for the automatic management of company expenses.
Thus, Captio became part of Telefónica Digital España's Programa de Socis Comercials. "It is a win-win agreement, given that companies such as Telefónica need to offer additional services to their clients to set them apart them from the competition," says Vicient. The following step for the company is international expansion. Captio plans to open offices in Paris before the end of the year so that it can begin to penetrate the French market by adapting the software to the neighbouring country's tax system.
Efficient accounting
"At base, our technology allows for the easier handling of company paperwork, while for the tax office it is an efficient tool for more quickly processing and optimising the declaration of VAT tax," says Vicient, who uses his smartphone to take a photo of the coffee receipt in the Hotel Pulitzer. With a single click, the app automatically reads the basic information on the bill (quantity, data, VAT) and stores it in the Captio archive. Once the expense is approved by the accounting department, the data is incorporated into the company's accounting system (SAP, Oracle, etc) and can then be sent to the tax office. Another advantage of Captio is that it allows for the recovery of VAT by using the receipt of purchase, without having to wait for a bill.
"To start with, we wanted to mainly address self-employed and freelance workers, but we have ended up focusing on large companies, with lots of employees on the move," says Vicient. The start-up has just signed an agreement with Hailo, the mobile app for booking taxis, which will allow users to automatically register the travel expense without the need to ask for a bill. "We integrate the management of the receipt directly into the system, without the need for any paper," says Vicient.
Excel still the rival to beat
Despite having almost no competitors – the only companies offering similar services are the US firms Expensify and Concur (which have been acquired by SAP) - Vicient is aware that the "main competitor continues to be the Excel spreadsheet". "We are an example of how, from any point in the world, such as Tortosa, you can undertake large-scale project," says Vicient, who is proud that many talented people in the Ebre area can find in Captio an opportunity to work from their home towns.
With almost 40,000 users and 300 corporate clients, Captio's aim is to continue investing in innovation to become the leading mobile app for digitising bills in the world. For the moment, there are no plans for a further round of investment. "Many entrepreneurs are obsessed by raising capital, when the most important thing is to focus on sales. Clients have to be the main source of revenue," concludes Vicient.
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