Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. You're listening to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week with Carol Masser and tim Stenoveek on Bloomberg Radio. Carol,
Speaker 1: did you catch this story in the New York Times
Speaker 1: over the weekend? I might have the computer science grads
Speaker 1: they're having trouble getting jobs.
Speaker 2: I am amazed at some of the stuff that's going
Speaker 2: on and how quickly it's changed.
Speaker 1: So like ten years ago, we were all told to
Speaker 1: go learn how to code. You can get these great jobs,
Speaker 1: entry level jobs, and some of the biggest tech firms
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Yeah. The Times
Speaker 1: profiled this twenty five year old is a computer science
Speaker 1: major at Oregon State University. He's applied to more than
Speaker 1: fifty seven hundred jobs. He's received thirteen interviews and no
Speaker 1: job offers. He was actually rejected from McDonald's because of
Speaker 1: a lack of experience.
Speaker 2: That's amazing. Yeah, So it makes me think that the
Speaker 2: people who are out there that are all looking have
Speaker 2: tons of experience, so those people who are just kind
Speaker 2: of out don't even have a chance.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I had this conversation some executives who are involved
Speaker 1: in AI just in the last couple of days at
Speaker 1: this Bloomberg event and they were saying, it's entry level
Speaker 1: right now, that's really seeing the effect of this.
Speaker 2: But the thing is, and I don't know whether it's
Speaker 2: AI or some other things that are going on, if
Speaker 2: you can't get that entry experience, how can you forget
Speaker 2: to be experienced and kind of move up the chain. Hey,
Speaker 2: we're wondering what our next guest has to say about it.
Speaker 2: Katherine Costareva, she thinks about it. She is CEO and
Speaker 2: maging partner at Creatio. It's a customer relationship management company
Speaker 2: sells software that automates workflows using no code and AI tools.
Speaker 2: Catherine joining us from Boston. Good to have you back
Speaker 2: with us. How are you.
Speaker 3: It's good to be here back. Hello Carol, Hello Teams.
Speaker 3: So nice meeting you today again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, good to see you again. You know, I was
Speaker 1: thinking of you when we were preparing for the segment
Speaker 1: and about the way that we've been talking to you
Speaker 1: for quite a bit of time about no code and
Speaker 1: low code and AI. You guys were into this really early.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if you're seeing Yeah, I'm wondering if you're
Speaker 1: seeing this the way it affects your business and the
Speaker 1: way it affects your clients, because if you're able to
Speaker 1: do things that previously coders were able to do with
Speaker 1: actually having no computer science experience, then how is it
Speaker 1: played out of Creatio?
Speaker 3: Right? And as you can imagine, it is a phenomenal
Speaker 3: opportunity here at Creatia and for us as a company
Speaker 3: because we've been talking about no code for ten years now, right,
Speaker 3: So the company was founded ten years ago and every
Speaker 3: time we connected with both of you, I've been talking
Speaker 3: about no code and this is the future. So here
Speaker 3: it is the future has come, So we can be
Speaker 3: more excited, but first and foremost because of the value
Speaker 3: we delivered to our clients thanks to no code and AI.
Speaker 3: So basically what we do at Creatio we combine no code,
Speaker 3: visual design tools, and AI together to help them build
Speaker 3: applications and automate workflows much faster than ever before.
Speaker 2: So talk to us about the workflows that you guys
Speaker 2: are most automating for your customers. What is it that
Speaker 2: they want automated?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, so, Creatia as a remind is a no code
Speaker 3: agentic platform. When I say agentic, meaning that we automated
Speaker 3: with applications but also with agents, and we automate CRM
Speaker 3: mostly customer front office workflows, marketing, sales service, but also
Speaker 3: middle office operations and workflows like customer onboarding, employee onboarding,
Speaker 3: loan origination, all kinds of.
Speaker 2: Okay, time out, time out here, all right, CRM Customer
Speaker 2: Relationship Management. I understand helping companies deal with their customers,
Speaker 2: but talk to us about onboarding. Is that means about
Speaker 2: customer acquisition? Kind of break it down for us so
Speaker 2: that somebody listening is like, oh, okay, that's what they
Speaker 2: do for customers.
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely. Just think about a bank or a credit union.
Speaker 3: When you open a new account, for example, at a
Speaker 3: credit union or a bank, the whole onboarding starts right KEYYC,
Speaker 3: know your client and all different checks and compliance checks
Speaker 3: and filling in all the data about clients and then
Speaker 3: communicating with your clients. So all of that is automated
Speaker 3: on the workflow platform of Creatia agantic platform, partially with
Speaker 3: the help of agents today and this is what helps
Speaker 3: in my example, banks growth efficiency and partially with traditional applications.
Speaker 2: When does it help us customers? We customers, because man,
Speaker 2: I am so tired of filling out so much stuff you.
Speaker 1: Just have to remember your password.
Speaker 2: I well, yeah, that's another thing, but you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. Yeah, I feel like I'm constantly filling out
Speaker 2: wherever I go, the same stuff over and over and
Speaker 2: over again.
Speaker 1: I want single sign on for everything. I will say
Speaker 1: one thing that's great about working here, among many things,
Speaker 1: is we have the single sign on technology. And I
Speaker 1: think a lot of companies do. But it's like it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if we're logging into and I'm not going
Speaker 1: to name the third party services, but you know them all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we use the same single sign on tech. How are
Speaker 1: we doing that everywhere? I mean, that's not really within
Speaker 1: your wheelhouse, but you could give me an answer just to.
Speaker 2: Make it easier. But it just feels like more complicated
Speaker 2: at least from this perspective.
Speaker 3: And this is a wonderful question actually, because now we
Speaker 3: dive into the security and compliance and governance questions which
Speaker 3: are critical for all the enterprises globally, and if we
Speaker 3: take regional specificity as well, like, for example, we have
Speaker 3: many many clients in Europe, and in Europe, it's going
Speaker 3: to be GDPR compliance right because of all the compliance
Speaker 3: and regulations and layers and layers of that and that
Speaker 3: is why creation is and enterprise software exists to help
Speaker 3: you simplify all these processes as much as we potentially can.
Speaker 2: And GDPR, of course, is the General Data Protection Regulation.
Speaker 2: That's the European Union law that's focusing on protecting personal
Speaker 2: data of individuals within the EU, and many say is
Speaker 2: really setting the standards for the world like that is
Speaker 2: kind of becoming the gold standard because they are super
Speaker 2: superocused on protecting individual data.
Speaker 1: Hey, Catherine, one thing I want to talk to you about,
Speaker 1: because it's been quite a while since we spoke, is
Speaker 1: just where you are as a business. Last I found
Speaker 1: a bit over a year ago two hundred million dollars
Speaker 1: round raise from venture capitalists including Sapphire Ventures and others
Speaker 1: Horizon Capital as well, that was valuing the company at
Speaker 1: one point two billion dollars. How's that give us an update?
Speaker 1: Do you need to raise more money or you an IPO?
Speaker 3: Oh, we absolutely not raised more money because we are
Speaker 3: a capital efficient company. But team, you remember when we
Speaker 3: spoke class time, it was around a year ago. I
Speaker 3: shared with you that we raised this fund actually to
Speaker 3: invest in AI. So that's exactly what we have been doing.
Speaker 3: And the revenues of the company has grown since then
Speaker 3: since this capital raise by forty six percent, So forty
Speaker 3: six percent capital efficient growth. So this is what we
Speaker 3: leave our first.
Speaker 1: So you're you're never you never have to go back
Speaker 1: to venture capitalists to raise more money.
Speaker 3: Oh, we are absolutely not. We actually even a year
Speaker 3: ago when we had a conversation, we're not in this
Speaker 3: situation then we needed this money. We just wanted to
Speaker 3: clearly articulate to the market that issue is unicorn and
Speaker 3: continues to grow very very fast.
Speaker 1: So next stop IPO.
Speaker 3: We'll see how it goes well.
Speaker 1: I mean, this environment seems to be pretty good for ipoing.
Speaker 1: What would a timeline be like, what would what needs
Speaker 1: to happen at at the company before at IPOs?
Speaker 3: We need to keep up this growth rate, and from
Speaker 3: what we're seeing right now, the demand is there and
Speaker 3: the technology we delivered because because again it is a
Speaker 3: getic platform and we raise efficiency for our clients significantly,
Speaker 3: the demand is there. So we need to deliver this
Speaker 3: growth rates that we've been delivering over the last several years.
Speaker 1: How long do you need to continue this growth rate
Speaker 1: in order to be comfortable tapping the capital market. So
Speaker 1: we're not going to be talking to you about an
Speaker 1: IPO until twenty twenty seven.
Speaker 3: Maybe maybe twenty twenty six. We'll see how it goes.
Speaker 1: Okay, we got somewhere.
Speaker 3: I love I love heathern.
Speaker 2: One thing I want to ask you, who are your customers?
Speaker 2: And I'm curious, based on the business flow that you
Speaker 2: are seeing from them, what does it tell you about
Speaker 2: the global economy? What does it tell you about the
Speaker 2: US economy?
Speaker 3: Okay, brilliant. So we operate in one hundred countries and
Speaker 3: we mostly serve mid sized and large organizations, organizations who
Speaker 3: have at least one hundred million in revenues. Why because
Speaker 3: they already get into this complexity with workflows and customer
Speaker 3: relationships and they have very complex infrastructures. So to make
Speaker 3: their life easier and again to automate their work with
Speaker 3: AI agents, that's who we target. That's who we mostly
Speaker 3: work with, mid sized and large organizations globally. We have
Speaker 3: clients in the Middle East, in Australia. In fact, today,
Speaker 3: just today in jia Karta in Indiania, we had a
Speaker 3: big no code day. Six hundred people came our clients
Speaker 3: from the region, not only Indonesia, but APEC region. So yes,
Speaker 3: this is a global operations that we provide to our clients.
Speaker 2: So what does it tell you with that perspective advantage
Speaker 2: point about what's going on in the global economy and
Speaker 2: what's going on? How much of your businesses to the US.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's our biggest market by far. Of course, the
Speaker 3: company is headquartered and was founded here in Boston headquarters.
Speaker 2: So tell me what your perspective is, just briefly, the
Speaker 2: global economy in the US economy, how would you describe it?
Speaker 3: Listen, with all the recent changes in the economy, it's
Speaker 3: not the easiest time for our clients, I can tell
Speaker 3: you that. And again this is another reason what we're
Speaker 3: seeing on the market, what we're seeing in terms of
Speaker 3: budgets for technology, everyone is cutting costs and everyone is
Speaker 3: looking for the most efficient solutions, something that will immediately
Speaker 3: provide the ROI. So time to value. Like clients today,
Speaker 3: organizations today, because of the global economy, they have to
Speaker 3: be very very efficient in all their operations. That is
Speaker 3: why on our market, our buyers they are very very
Speaker 3: kind of cautious about time to value. If we purchase
Speaker 3: and when we implement your software, how fast we will
Speaker 3: be getting this ROI. We will be getting the efficiency
Speaker 3: from your software, and this is our primary focus in
Speaker 3: all our collaboration with clients.
Speaker 2: All right, we're going to leave it on that note. Catherine,
Speaker 2: thank you so much. Good to check in with you.
Speaker 2: Stay well, Catherine coast Reva. She is the CEO Managing
Speaker 2: Partner at Creatia, joining us from Boston.