Zulu

Private

Colombian B2B cross-border payments platform enabling SMEs across Latin America to pay international suppliers, collect from foreign clients, and manage multi-currency payroll through a single platform covering over 55 countries.

Bogotá, Colombia | Cross-Border Payments | Est. 2021 | Website

At a Glance

Strength

Processing $110 million for over 400 companies across 55 countries in three years of operation demonstrates genuine product-market fit in a segment — SME cross-border payments — that traditional banks and global platforms like Wise Business have consistently underserved in LATAM.

Challenge

At $5M in seed funding (2022), Zulu is competing in a well-capitalized market against Airwallex, Wise Business, Adyen, and Latin-American competitors like Tribal Credit and Albo, all of which have raised significantly more capital.

Opportunity

Colombia's Bre-B instant payment system, being developed by the central bank, will create a domestic instant rails infrastructure that Zulu could integrate to offer instant domestic-to-international payment flows — dramatically improving settlement speed relative to current SWIFT-dependent alternatives.

Overview

Zulu was founded in Bogotá in 2021 by Esteban Villegas (CEO) and Julián Delgado (CTO) to solve a problem that sounds simple but is operationally brutal: helping Latin American SMEs pay international suppliers and collect from foreign clients. The problem is real — a small Colombian manufacturing company needing to pay a Chinese supplier faces correspondent banking delays, opaque FX spreads, and documentation requirements that can stretch a two-day payment into two weeks.

In three years, Zulu has processed $110 million for more than 400 companies across more than 55 countries, establishing itself as a genuine alternative to bank wire transfers for the regional SME segment.

Products

Zulu's platform handles the full spectrum of a company's international payment needs: supplier payments to international vendors, collections from foreign clients, international payroll for remote-first teams, and increasingly, investment account connectivity — enabling Colombian businesses and investors to move funds into and out of platforms like Charles Schwab and Interactive Brokers.

The investment product is strategically interesting. It signals that Zulu is not purely a payment rails company but is positioning toward the broader treasury management needs of LATAM businesses that want to hold dollar-denominated assets.

Market Context

Cross-border SME payments in Latin America are structurally broken. Traditional banks charge spreads of 3-5% on FX transactions, settlement takes days, and the documentation requirements designed for large corporate transactions create disproportionate friction for smaller businesses. Zulu's pitch is speed, transparency, and rates calibrated for companies moving $10,000-$500,000 at a time — not the millions that justify enterprise banking relationships.

Colombia is the right home market for this product. The country's 36% fintech investment growth in 2024 reflects a maturing ecosystem of digital-native SMEs that expect financial infrastructure to match their operational pace. The planned launch of Bre-B, Colombia's first interoperable instant payment system, will create new domestic rails that companies like Zulu can integrate to improve end-to-end settlement times further.

Funding and Ecosystem

Zulu raised a $5 million seed round in 2022, led by Cadenza Ventures with participation from Nexo Ventures, Simplex, CMT Digital, and Gaingels, alongside a group of notable operator-investors from the LATAM startup ecosystem. The company is a member of Colombia Fintech, Fedesoft, and Uniandinos, and co-founder Villegas's board seat at Colombia Fintech positions Zulu at the center of the country's financial policy conversations — including the regulatory sandbox (La Arenera) and crypto asset framework discussions.

Editorial Assessment

The Good, The Bad & Opportunities

The Good

Processing $110 million for over 400 companies across 55 countries in three years of operation demonstrates genuine product-market fit in a segment — SME cross-border payments — that traditional banks and global platforms like Wise Business have consistently underserved in LATAM.
The B2B focus is strategically sound: SMEs paying international suppliers, collecting from foreign clients, and running international payroll are high-frequency, high-need users with limited alternatives — a stickier, higher-LTV segment than retail remittances.
The investment product launch — enabling Colombian SMEs and investors to deposit and withdraw from platforms like Charles Schwab and Interactive Brokers — opens a differentiated revenue stream beyond pure payment flows.

The Challenge

At $5M in seed funding (2022), Zulu is competing in a well-capitalized market against Airwallex, Wise Business, Adyen, and Latin-American competitors like Tribal Credit and Albo, all of which have raised significantly more capital.
SME cross-border payments is a high-touch sales environment — winning and retaining corporate clients requires dedicated relationship management, compliance support, and product customization that strains unit economics at early scale.
Colombia's currency controls and regulatory environment for cross-border payments require ongoing compliance overhead — any changes to DIAN reporting requirements or Banco de la República FX regulations directly affect Zulu's operating model.
Transaction revenue from payment flows depends on spreads and fees that global competitors with better FX pricing are continuously compressing — a structural margin pressure that requires volume scale to overcome.

Opportunities

Colombia's Bre-B instant payment system, being developed by the central bank, will create a domestic instant rails infrastructure that Zulu could integrate to offer instant domestic-to-international payment flows — dramatically improving settlement speed relative to current SWIFT-dependent alternatives.
The Colombian diaspora in the United States is large and growing — there is a product adjacency between SME cross-border payments (Zulu's core) and platform-enabled remittances for business owners paying family back home, a segment no fintech has deeply served.
Zulu's investment account integration (Charles Schwab, Interactive Brokers) represents an expansion into wealth management infrastructure for LATAM SMEs — a high-margin, high-retention product if executed well.
As Colombia formalizes its crypto asset regulatory framework and open banking rules mature, Zulu's stablecoin-friendly positioning and Colombia Fintech affiliation put it in a strong position to be among the first licensed providers of stablecoin-based B2B payment rails.

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