Help for your business: A digital ally that understands your needs
The ‘yotramito’ platform, a startup accelerated by Bcombinator, relies on artificial intelligence to recommend the most appropriate subsidies for each profile and facilitate all the procedures.
David Pascual (CTO), Alfredo Colombano (COO) and Alejandro Perez de Cardenas (CEO)
Interview by B. RODRIGO, published in the digital newspaper ABC
Keeping up to date with all the grants and subsidies for which we can apply is not an easy task, especially for small businesses. It takes time to get information and to fill in the forms, which are often quite complex. It is precisely to facilitate all these procedures that the digital platform ‘yotramito’ was created a few years ago, which uses AI to automatically recommend the most appropriate aid or subsidies for each company or professional, according to their economic needs, equipment and business. Since its creation, it has processed more than 3,000 grants and has obtained more than 10 million euros in subsidies and grants from public bodies for its clients.
‘At Covid, with time to think, a feeling of indignation arises in which the data are devastating in terms of fund management. We return 60% that we don’t know how to manage and only 10% of SMEs have access to aid,’ explains Alejandro Perez de Cardenas, CEO and founder of yotramito. More than two decades ago he founded Idel, a consultancy firm specialising in accessing and managing European and multilateral funds. Very knowledgeable about this sector, he looked for new tools to improve the business. ‘Technologies such as AI emerged and we saw the possibility of applying it to the grants process,’ he says. On one side he has placed ‘the whole ocean of grants analysed by the AI developed by us’ and on the other side are all the companies. ‘Our engine brings together this analysis of the subsidies with the characteristics of the companies,’ says the platform’s CEO.
Only with the CIF can they obtain the recommendation of the aid that corresponds to that company. As Perez de Cardenas points out, the project ‘has a brutal scalability because we can do it for entire groups. For all the clients of a bank or for companies in the metal sector…’, he gives as an example. In 2022 a proof of concept of the platform was carried out, which worked well, and between 2023 and 2024 they have been developing the product. ‘We have been gradually releasing modules and now it is already available for consultancies and agencies so that they can send the product to their clients,’ he explains.
Open model
For now, ‘yotramito’ offers an open model in which they ask users to register and charge a percentage for the processing of the aid. Another modality is the existing one for consultancies or agencies, where they have a subscription model. So far they have invested more than one million euros in the project thanks to funding rounds and also grants, including the CDTI. The CEO of ‘yotramito’ explains that this startup digitalises a business model that exists and that they are ‘a facilitating agent’ in the face of a collapsed administration. All the data they use is public, such as the CNAE, number of employees, balance sheet, income statement… For now there are nine employees, including technologists and administrative staff.
