Biography
Juan Pablo Ramos is the co-founder of Prima, a Mexican startup reviving the country’s manufacturing industry. Prima is a manufacturing integrator (a concept explained below) that provides manufacturing and construction solutions to USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada) enterprise clients.
The company has raised over $35M in equity and $38M in debt in funding. They’ve worked with 290 clients and have delivered over 1700 purchase orders.
Prior to Prima, Juan Pablo was the director of regional operations for UberEats in LATAM, amongst other experiences in tech. He earned his MBA from Stanford.
You say that Mexico didn’t seize the first wave of globalization. Can you elaborate?
Mexico used to be a strong, leading industrial country. But we missed the turn of globalization when China came into the scene. Many large clients started working with Chinese suppliers rather than Mexican ones, killing the latter in the process. Mexico’s weight in the global manufacturing space isn’t as heavy as it should be, considering the competitive advantages we enjoy (educated labor force, strategic location…)
That being said, our competitive advantages remain. We just need to capitalize on them. Prima’s mission is to do that, turning Mexico into the manufacturing powerhouse it should be.
Source: Prima memo (public)
Why is it important to industrialize Mexico?
A country with a strong manufacturing base is a country that gains in international competitiveness and sovereignty. Having the ability to produce things, at scale, is simply best practice for a country’s health.
Once again, Mexico has the ingredients. We have plenty of good, family-owned manufacturing SMEs, who face challenges ranging from lack of financing, tech immaturity, to succession issues (younger generations want to work in consulting, not in factories). So-called “search funds” are circling the market, looking for SMEs to buy and roll-up into their portfolio.
Mexican manufacturing SME space needs better coordination, financing, and tech. Prima provides that layer of orchestration.
RO insights: Mexico's nearshoring opportunity
As globalization recedes and economies regionalize, Mexico stands to gain from the US’ “nearshoring” trend.
Here’s how Archie Cochrane, GP at Nascent (a LATAM VC fund) gauges the opportunity:
“LATAM (Mexico in particular) sits at a bankable junction between geopolitical developments and geographical positioning. One of my favorite books is “Prisoners of Geography”, which analyzes how countries’ geographies determine their success. Lessons from the book tell me Mexico is currently in a great position.
There’s been a bi-partisan accord in the US to decouple their supply chain from China. However, the US can’t afford to shift its entire supply-chain cost base from Chinese costs to American costs. Products would suddenly become too expensive for the American consumer.
The next best option is Mexico. That quasi-inevitable, deepening economic relationship will seep into tech. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Mexican startups solving American problems and conquering the American market. Almost 20% of Americans are Latino after all.
Just as New York emerged as a serious tech hub in circa 2013, my view is that Mexico City (CDMX) will become the next North American tech hub. In ten years’ time, my bet is CDMX will be mentioned in the same breath as New York, Miami, Austin or LA as a fertile tech ecosystem.”
Excerpt from Adapting VC to emerging markets, originally published in The Realistic Optimist
What does Prima do?