Austin’s Original Fintech Gets a Reboot with the Return of Its Visionary Founders
Sosa brothers’ entrepreneurial journey takes them around the world and returns them home with the creation of their newest venture Ouro
Around the time ’90s Austin hit the peak dot-com era, and brothers Roy and Bertrand Sosa leaped into entrepreneurship. With $750 and an idea for letting people who didn’t pay with plastic spend online, they launched Netspend from their one-bedroom apartment in the town where they grew up and called home.
The next decades saw the startup birth the billion-dollar prepaid and digital debit category, technology firsts in financial services that foretold the rise of fintech, a successful IPO, and an acquisition followed by another. The period also saw the Sosas start a second venture that broadened their ambitions to bring financial services to overlooked consumers to a global scale with Rêv Worldwide. Last year, the Sosas made waves when Rêv acquired Netspend and returned them to lead the first company they founded.
Now, twenty-five years later, the Sosas have reinvented their original vision, and with it, the company that combines Netspend and Rêv, now called Ouro, a name that nods to the ancient ouroboros symbol and the promise of endless possibilities and reinvention it represents.
The journey of reinvention is one the brothers have traveled before. Born in Mexico, Roy and Bertrand moved to Austin as teens. They frequently credit their cross-cultural heritage for the perspective they bring to the need for innovations and inclusion in financial services as well as the entrepreneurial ethos that drove the inception of Netspend and Rêv and finds new expression in Ouro.
At Ouro, the brothers apply their rich experiences, learnings, and global perspectives with renewed purpose. They’re as proud and bullish as ever on Netspend and speak passionately about the Ouro team’s progress elevating the product to offer a new generation of unbanked and underbanked consumers a digital alternative to cash that offers financial security.
And they can’t wait to share their newest product, X World Wallet, with more of the world. Early customers in Austin and the U.S. already love X World Wallet for travel and sending money to loved ones. The multi-currency wallet revolutionizes international transactions by enabling instant money transfers between users, real-time currency exchange, and the ability to hold multiple currencies. Designed for today’s globally connected consumers, it offers a seamless, app-based banking experience that merges the convenience of domestic spending with the advantages of international commerce and rewards.
About the journey to date, the elder Sosa, Roy, shares the belief he’s developed that “Ultimate success depends on the willingness to keep trying in the face of setbacks, to return again and again to where you started so you can reinvent the possible.” Bertrand adds, “We started this company in Austin 23 years ago and built it from nothing to a billion-dollar public company that empowers millions of consumers, so in many ways, it feels like we have come full circle back home.”
The Sosa brothers’ story gravitates around the power of homecoming, the strength found in roots, and the boundless opportunities that emerge when innovation meets determination. As they continue to reshape the fintech landscape, Roy and Bertrand Sosa embody Austin’s reputation as a cradle of creativity and transformation. The journey around the world indeed brings the Sosa brothers back home, ready to embark on their next adventure in the vibrant, ever-evolving, and now global city of Austin.