Palomma, a Medellín, Colombia company that sells AI software and rent-payment services to property managers, has raised a $10 million Series A led by the Mexican venture firm Cometa, Crunchbase News reported exclusively on 11 November 2026 (Mary Ann Azevedo, a freelance reporter for the outlet). The financing brings total funding to $14 million, including $4 million in previously undisclosed funding, according to Palomma’s co-founder and chief executive Cipriano Echavarría. The article does not say what type of funding the $4 million was or whether any of the money is debt, and no source Lens read says any part is debt. No valuation was disclosed. Crunchbase News says the Series A closed about three weeks before 4 November.

The round

New Series A investors are Volpe Capital, Clocktower Technology Ventures, Tekton Ventures, Simma Capital and Yango Ventures; existing investors are Y Combinator, 17Sigma, Nido Ventures and Norte Ventures. Cometa’s managing partner is Pepe Bolaños. According to Crunchbase News, the money will go to expanding in Colombia, developing more AI and financial products, and preparing to enter other markets. Colombia is the priority, with Mexico, Brazil and the Spanish-speaking US market under evaluation, and homeowners-association payments and residential property transactions are longer-term goals.

What Palomma does

Crunchbase News describes Palomma as selling AI software to property managers for leasing, customer service and collections, and running a rent-payment system whose data supports financial products for tenants and landlords. It reaches renters and landlords through property managers, which pay a subscription for the software; Palomma also takes a percentage of the rent processed. The products named are Palomma Plus (tenant rewards and credit-building), Palomma Advance (landlords collect up to 12 months of future rent upfront), Palomma Protect (covers rental income if a tenant defaults) and Palomma Flex, which is in development and would let tenants split monthly rent into two payments. Palomma initially takes the default risk on guarantees itself and is working to finalise a partnership with an insurer to share it, according to the article. Palomma’s own site describes Advance as up to six months of rent, which differs from the 12 months in the articles. Palomma says an AI leasing agent working over WhatsApp approves applications in under 30 seconds.

Company figures

The following figures were reported from Palomma and have not been independently verified. Annual recurring revenue is about $3 million, up thirtyfold in 18 months; about $130 million of rent is processed monthly, which Crunchbase News estimates at $1.5 billion a year; more than 200,000 tenants are served through more than 500 property managers in Colombia; net revenue retention is 390% after 12 months; and the company had 18 employees as of 4 November, up from about 14 when the Series A closed. One customer-service employee works with AI agents to support about 200,000 tenants. The Startup Journal reports next-year targets of about 500,000 tenants and 1,500 real estate firms. Cometa cites nearly 8 million Colombian households that rent their homes.

The founders

Echavarría worked at Nubank for nearly two years after joining in late 2020 for its Colombia launch and, before that, at Morgan Stanley in New York; nothing in the sources says Nubank invested in Palomma. Co-founders Felipe Monsalve and Nicolás Gómez del Campo are described by Crunchbase News as MIT-trained engineers with experience at Meta, Cobre and JP Morgan. Palomma was in Y Combinator’s Winter 2023 batch; Forbes Colombia reported in March 2023 that it then offered a pay-by-bank payments API for online merchants. Crunchbase News says growth was flat for about a year before property managers asked for help collecting rent, which shifted the company’s focus. Echavarría told Crunchbase News: “In Latin America, if you want to be really large, you need to do all the things.”

Where accounts differ

Crunchbase News describes the $14 million as a $10 million Series A plus $4 million previously undisclosed, while Ruta N, Revista C-Level, Halcones y Palomas and LatamFintech, whose articles appear to repeat a company release, describe it as coming from pre-Series A and Series A rounds without a split. Those sources and Palomma’s website give more than 500 agencies; El Ecosistema Startup, an aggregator whose three versions of the story differ and which credits Portafolio, gives about 350 and different figures for use of funds and Palomma Protect, so Lens treats its figures as low confidence. The articles name different roles for the co-founders. No source states a launch date for the rent business, a regulatory licence or a valuation; Palomma’s website names no financial licence, and “AI-native bank” is the company’s stated long-term vision, not a licence.

Sources and notes

Sources: Crunchbase News (Mary Ann Azevedo, 11 November 2026, read twice); LatamFintech Hub and Halcones y Palomas (11 November), Revista C-Level, The Startup Journal, Ruta N (the Medellín innovation agency) and El Ecosistema Startup, all in Spanish and read through summaries; The SaaS News; Y Combinator’s company page; Palomma’s website, whose counters did not render; Forbes Colombia’s March 2023 article as republished by LatamFintech Hub; and Cometa’s site. Lens found no TechCrunch coverage, and could not find the El Colombiano and Portafolio articles that one aggregator cites. The Cometa that led this round is the venture firm, not the Mexican school-finance start-up of the same name.

Image: Apartment towers in the El Poblado district of Medellín, Colombia, March 2009. Photo: CONOCER, shared via Wikitravel Shared and Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Stand-in image of a Medellín residential district; it does not show Palomma, its customers or any building in its portfolio.