EU-Startups Podcast | Episode 142: Julio Martinez, Co-founder and CEO of Abacum
In this episode of the EU-Startups Podcast, we sit down with Julio Martinez, Co-founder and CEO of Abacum, a platform that helps CFOs and finance teams forecast revenue, plan headcount, and model financial scenarios to drive efficient growth. Founded in 2020, the company has raised a total of $105 million to date and now serves hundreds of mid-market companies across 31 countries.
Julio is an experienced entrepreneur with a background in fintech and a passion for building tools that simplify complex financial operations. Under his leadership, Abacum has expanded globally, with a team of more than 100 employees across Barcelona, New York, and London.
In our conversation, we talk about how Abacum transforms traditional spreadsheet-heavy workflows into real-time, collaborative planning, how finance teams adopt the platform in practice, Spain’s growing tech scene, and why the company is doubling down on U.S. expansion. We also dive into Julio’s personal operating system: Vipassana, Stoicism (Epictetus), journaling, family-first values, and even his near-career as a paella cook (though he hasn’t said his last word on that yet).
Video version of episode 142:
Audio version of episode 142:
Key Takeaways:
- Excel works… until scale, collaboration, and cadence break it.
- One live model for revenue, headcount, and OPEX equals forecasts you can defend.
- Headcount discipline covering role, timing, ramp, and ROI beats top-down totals.
- AI enhances productivity; decisions remain human.
- EU vs US: The EU optimises for control, the U.S. for speed. Abacum serves both.
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