A Latino organization, which facilitates connections between venture capitalists and startups while advocating for increased diversity in the media industry, has successfully secured its inaugural $100 million fund. This fund is specifically dedicated to supporting new businesses led by Hispanic entrepreneurs. This development is significant because a study conducted by Bain & Company, the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative, and the research nonprofit Latino Donor Collaborative found that less than 1% of funding from the top 25 venture capital and private equity firms goes to Latino-owned businesses.
In the latest update, L’Attitude Ventures revealed that it had raised more than $100 million for the fund. This accomplishment was made possible through a strategic anchor investment by JPMorgan Chase and initial contributions from Trujillo Group and Bank of America.
- Other investors include: U.C. Investments and MassMutual, Barclays, the Royal Bank of Canada and Polaris Limited Partners.
- L’Attitude Ventures founder and general partner Sol Trujillo said the fund is an opening salvo for an investment boom directed toward early-stage Hispanic-owned companies
Latino entrepreneurs are responsible for about 50% of net new small business growth in the U.S. over the past decade, according to data from 2007 to 2017.
- Those Latino-owned businesses are growing in annual revenue faster than white-owned businesses, the study found.
Of note: The total economic output of U.S. Latinos reached $2.7 trillion in 2019 and would be tied for the seventh-largest GDP in the world if U.S. Latinos were an independent country, according to a detailed study by the Latino Donor Collaborative.
- The study found that the 2019 U.S. Latino gross domestic product of $2.7 trillion spiked from $2.1 trillion in 2015 to $1.7 trillion in 2010.
