Julian Torres is a Colombian entrepreneur, co-founder and CEO of OnTop, a fintech company he created four years ago that has already gone global. In record time, OnTop has grown from a business launched in Torres’ living room to a global player covering more than 100 countries. At only 35, Torres is now a big player in the Fintech environment.
Colombia One interviewed Torres to discuss his story and the business opportunities that are open to Colombians and Latin Americans in the U.S.
The success story of Colombian fintech CEO
Originally from Bogota, today Torres lives in the U.S. and leads a global fintech network. “We started OnTop with the vision of becoming global from day one. We wanted a business born out of Colombia with global outreach,” Torres says.
OnTop is a fintech business that facilitates hiring and payments between U.S. companies and workers worldwide. “We enable companies to hire and pay people all over the world as easily as if they were living in the same city,” explains Torres.
Torres started the project from his apartment during the Covid-19 lockdown of August 2020, along with the company’s co-founder, Santiago Aparicio. The company quickly attracted investors, raising US$35 million in a few months.
Four years on, the OnTop team is present in 26 countries, with a global reach of tens of thousands of affiliated workers. “OnTop enables companies to hire workers in more than 100 countries,” Torres says, explaining how the company’s U.S. dollar wallet and credit card function allows international workers to receive, save, and transfer their pay.
Torres manages his company from Miami, where he has lived since January 2022 after obtaining an extraordinary ability visa. He feels that relocating to the U.S. was the best way to regulate and grow a global company. “It was a way to be closer to our investors, who are mostly based in New York or Miami,” he says.
Miami, a tech hub enabling Colombians and Latinos to go global
The choice of Miami was strategic. The city is a cultural and geographic bridge between the U.S. and Latin America. “A significant portion of our business is in Latin America,” Torres says. “Miami is the perfect city. It’s a developing tech hub between the U.S. and Latin America, with a lot of talent and investors coming in.”
Indeed, Torres is at the forefront of U.S. investment efforts in Latin America. “Most U.S. companies want to hire in Latin America because of time zone advantages and costs,” he explains. “It’s 3.5 or even four times cheaper to hire a software engineer in Argentina or Colombia than in the Bay Area.”
Colombia, a regional talent pool, has attracted many U.S. investors. “In Colombia, we have very capable talent, especially software developers who are increasingly competitive in the global market,” Torres outlines. As more Colombian professionals learn English, they gain access to a market where they are highly competitive due to lower costs.
Miami has already attracted hundreds of Colombian and Latin American professionals looking to create global businesses that also benefit their home countries. As a Spanish-speaking city, Miami is seen as a safe haven for Latin American investors. “Many Latinos have transferred their capital to Miami and the U.S. to protect their investments from political instability in their home countries,” Torres explains. “There’s a real benefit to investing in a place with more political and economic stability.”
Torres sees this movement of talent and capital as beneficial for Latin America. “My business connects Latin American talent with U.S. companies. U.S. capital flows back to Latin America, since companies need to pay local talent, and they are paying them well,” he says. “It’s a relocation of capital to a safer place where it develops and then flows back to Latin America.”
Julian Torres’ experience as a global company CEO
Reflecting on his experience as a Colombian entrepreneur and CEO in the U.S., and the opportunities the country offers for others, Torres is positive. “Even without living in the U.S., you can start a business there. We weren’t U.S. residents when we started,” he says.
“It’s becoming easier to start a business in the U.S. from scratch,” he continues, while acknowledging that hard work is still essential. “Things in life don’t come for free. If you study hard, look for opportunities, and put in the effort, the U.S. market will open its doors.”
However, Torres recognizes that the entrepreneurial journey can be challenging. As a CEO, a particular difficulty is “finding the right people for the right positions.” “The U.S. startup market is very competitive,” he says. “Identifying, attracting, and retaining the correct talent in a competitive global labor market is the biggest challenge.”
Another challenge is navigating the visa process. “The most difficult part of starting a business in the U.S. is getting your visa,” Torres observes. “You want to do everything by the book.”
With his business already well-established, Torres is now focused on growing OnTop even further. “We want to reach US$50 million in ARR [annual recurring revenue] in the next three years,” he says, demonstrating his unceasing ambition and resolve. “[We want to give] hundreds of thousands of remote workers a USD account, and create a financial services ecosystem around remote work.”