A family optical shop was the starting point for a technology company that now aims to build a common digital infrastructure for the visual health sector in Latin America. Softix, founded in Colombia by industrial engineer Camilo Jiménez, has pursued a strategy focused on solving a very specific problem: digitizing an activity where paper medical records, spreadsheets, manual processes, and various systems that do not always communicate with each other still coexist.
The company claims to have already reached more than 2,000 clients, 10,000 active installations, and a presence in ten Latin American countries: Colombia, Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile. According to data provided by the company, its platform manages over 280,000 medical records and generates more than 70,000 electronic invoices each month.
The growth of Softix is also intriguing due to the path it has chosen. Rather than developing solutions for multiple sectors like many software companies, the Colombian firm has opted to specialize exclusively in the visual health ecosystem.
A software born from understanding the problem
The idea originated from the founder’s experience within the family business. Jiménez was familiar with the everyday challenges faced by optical shops: from the manual recording of medical records and visual prescriptions to coordinating with laboratories responsible for producing lenses.
From that knowledge, he developed a platform that integrates different processes within a single environment. Softix incorporates medical records for optometry and ophthalmology, laboratory management, inventory, electronic invoicing, patient tracking, administrative and accounting functions, commercial tools, and systems to meet regulatory demands.
The difference from conventional business software lies precisely in that specialization. An optical shop doesn’t just need to control what products it has in stock or issue an invoice. It must relate patient healthcare to prescriptions, lens production, suppliers, and compliance with various health regulations.
Softix has also developed integrations with visual diagnostic equipment. The information generated by certain devices can be automatically incorporated into the digital medical record, reducing manual data entry tasks and, according to the company, decreasing the risk of errors during the process.
From Colombia to the Latin American market
The internationalization began with a Honduran client who learned about the system during an optical sector meeting held in Colombia. That initial installation opened up expansion, which continued through referrals and professional events.
Today the platform is present from Mexico to Chile. The strategy has not consisted of simply transferring the same product to all markets, as healthcare, tax, and administrative regulations vary between countries. The ability to adapt the software to these requirements is part of Softix’s value proposition for differentiation.
This factor is especially important in a healthcare sector. Electronic medical records, invoicing, information protection, and reports required by authorities necessitate keeping systems up to date at all times.
The expansion of Softix thus illustrates one of the opportunities presented by the Ibero-American market for specialized technology companies: first solving a local problem and later discovering that much of that problem is repeated in other countries in the region, even though regulations and specific processes may differ.
The next stage: artificial intelligence
The company now aims to incorporate artificial intelligence tools to automate administrative and commercial processes, analyze information, and support certain decisions within the organizations that use its platform.
However, its long-term project goes beyond merely adding AI to the existing software. Softix envisions creating an ecosystem that connects patients, optical shops, professionals, laboratories, and suppliers within a single technological infrastructure. A patient could request an appointment; the optical shop would manage the consultation and medical record; the laboratory would receive the corresponding order, and the various participants would share the necessary information flow to complete the service.
This is a considerable ambition for a company that started out trying to solve the operational problems of a family optical shop. It also represents a business trend that deserves attention in Latin America: technology companies seeking to grow not through generic products but through deep specialization in specific industries.
In the case of Softix, the goal is no longer just to sell software to manage optical shops. The company aims to become the technological layer that digitally connects a part of the Latin American visual health industry.
It will still have to prove how far it can take this ambition and how its implementation evolves in the ten markets where it claims to have a presence. But its journey from a need identified in Colombia to a platform with regional aspirations tells a recognizable story of Latin American entrepreneurship: deeply understanding a problem, developing technology to solve it, and discovering that the market can be much larger than the country where it all began.
