Why I Sold – Acquisition Stories with Rafael Mon, K2B

We had the pleasure of speaking with Rafael Mon, founder of K2B. In 2022, K2B became Jonas’ first acquisition in Latin America — a milestone for our presence in the region.

K2B was the first company to launch a web-based ERP specifically designed for state entities. Today, it’s a cloud-based ERP specializing in financial and government vertical markets, implemented in over 10 countries across Latin America.

In this episode, Rafael shares what it was like to be approached by Jonas, the acquisition process, and his experience post-acquisition as part of the Vesta Software Group portfolio.

Listen to the full conversation below.

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Podcast Transcript

Tell us a little bit about K2B’s origin story and give us a brief history of the company.

K2B was founded in 2010 in Uruguay, and we were the first company to release a web-based ERP specifically designed for state entities.

K2B is a Cloud ERP specialized in financial and government vertical markets and it has been implemented in over 10 countries in Latin America.

It is a leading-edge solution that serves large and complex organizations, like central banks, corporate groups and several financial companies.

How did K2B discover Jonas when you were looking to be aquired?

In our case we were not considering an acquisition and we were not aware about what the process meant either. Jonas contacted us, and explained and guided us through the process, building trust and confidence.

For us it was a very meaningful and moving decision because many of us have worked in the company for decades. And we didn’t want to impact on our employees and their trust.

Jonas helped us to communicate the acquisition to them in a way that prevented any concerns.

How long was it from when Jonas first contacted K2B, to when you were acquired?

It was about a year. It was really long. For us it was something new and we didn’t really think about acquisition. But when Jonas approached us we really liked their proposal and it really aligned with our values and we got to keep our culture and independence. We also like the buy and hold forever claim. You’re commited to not make significant changes. It was really a very good option.

So before Jonas contacted K2B, your company wasn’t looking at being acquired at all? 

No, we were not looking at that. When we understood the proposal and what it can give to us, we decided to continue. We were also in a state which we needed to grow and joining a group like Jonas was a unique oppourtunity to make this transition and be more successful. So we weren’t looking for an acquisition, but we were looking to grow and really that was a very interesting offering to do that and to help us do that.

That’s really interesting, I didn’t know that about the story. I know we’ve talked about it a little bit but, why did you decide to sell to Jonas and how did we compare to other options out there?

We didn’t compare because as I told you, Jonas contacted us. 

The main reason we decided to sell was the buy forever claim and that we needed to grow. Another point that was important in our decision was the decentralized model and autonomy that Jonas proposes. That has enabled us to maintain the same structure and management team that has given the company the necessary stability and credibilty to continue our operations. 

That was another thing we had to consider in the decision because we are like a family. We have many employees that have worked here for many years and we wanted to take care of them and to continue working with them and give them the same conditions that they had before the acquisition. 

You spoke to it a little bit about our buy and hold forever and our autonomy philosophies. Then there’s our third philosopy, the culture of sharing best practices.
Any of those three, if you can just speak to how you’ve seen them in action since being acquired by Jonas.

The one thing that we really noticed and what really helped us was that we have been supported by a framework of Jonas best practices. And how we share how to apply those best practices among CSI companies. It really is a huge family, the CSI and Jonas companies. We have been sharing a lot of information and methodology between different companies and also that’s allowed us the possbility to continue growing and obtaining more successful results. Also how to understand how we can take advantage of all the information that we are seeing with all the new indicators we are having about the company to make better decisions.

Another point that was also important to us was the cutlure. For us our company culture is a very valuable asset. And in this way our main values have remained the same. It was very important that both Jonas and us (K2B) share the same values regarding the relevance of people. We maintained the same team and everybody now is really taking advantage of the new company, new group that are in.

Aside from the ABC’s that Jonas has, how has the experience been overall with Jonas post-acquisition?

In our experience, we have improved many processes in different areas of the company. Now we have more detailed and accurate finanical information and with that we can make better decisions. We also have more indicators that allow us to analyze the different areas with improving KPIs.

From the point of view of sales, we have restructured the sales team and we have changed our methodology, allowing us to have more and better leads and cites information and in the end we’ve increased our sales.

To do that we have made many changes in our processes and we involed the whole company in that. I think that it was very imporant to involve our company explain why we were doing these changes and why they are important. During that transition the Jonas team helped us with methodology and with their vast experience managaing many companies.

Now we can say that we have internalized these processes and we are taking advantage of all these bits of information and we have had very good results.

What advice would you give to companies looking to sell their business?

What I can say is – trust the process. 

Because the results will prove to be as promised during the acquisition. Personally I was concerned about the feasibility of the proposal, and also I wanted to continue working for many years in a satisifying work environment. 

I can say now that, choosing Jonas was the right decision. 

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