Philanthropic organizations and investment funds are launching registries that will help Latino startups be more visible to investors.YPulse’s employment and career goals report found that 56% of Hispanic young consumers say starting their own company is extremely / very important—and according to Crunchbase, though funding to Latino startup founders grew from $1.7 million in 2017 to $6.8 billion, Latino startups only accounted for a little more than 2% of all investments. To close the gap, Hispanics in Philanthropy, which provides resources and funding to Latino entrepreneurs in the U.S. and Latin America, launched an initiative to help advance equity, capital, and resources to Hispanic startups by building an open-source registry to spotlight Latino startup founders. The goal is to make those startups “more visible to investors who traditionally source opportunities through venture accelerators or through their own personal networks.” Meanwhile, investment fund Inicio Ventures created a fellowship program with several graduate students to build a registry that will identify Latino founders and startups in the U.S. (NBC News)
