Despite the headwinds they encountered along the way, Beebe and Rios are among the lucky ones. Latinx-owned companies are the fastest growing demographic among all U.S. entrepreneurs. Nevertheless, new data says they have received only about 1% of all investments from the top 25 venture capital and private equity firms over the past decade.1 “Latinx VC funding is a blind spot, given so little is being channeled to this population,” says Ileana Musa, Co-Head of International Wealth Management and Head of International Banking and Lending at Morgan Stanley, who sees a significant opportunity in these numbers to mobilize one of the most entrepreneurial yet most undercapitalized growth populations in the U.S.
Even Latinx founders who don’t experience outright discrimination or bias deal with pressures finding access to that capital that white male founders might not. Just ask Danny Garcia, founder of the Playlister Club, a data-driven music-discovery platform and global marketplace that lets playlisters and music fans more easily find and curate new talent, while providing artists and labels with tools to increase their exposure and reach new fans.
Garcia grew up in South Florida, the son of Venezuelan immigrants, including a father who was a tech entrepreneur himself. A musician from a young age, Garcia played the guitar and formed various bands with his friends. Yet he was always frustrated when trying to find an audience for the music he made. “We’d record our music and throw it up on video-sharing platforms and get zero views, zero likes,” he says.
So he and four others, all of them Latinx, launched Playlister in 2019. While Garcia faced the same issues as other founders trying to raise money, he found the music industry to be relatively open to diverse-led startups. Still, he sometimes felt isolated, disconnected from other founders who shared his background with whom he could compare notes or discuss new ideas.
As a member of this year’s Multicultural Innovation Lab, Garcia has finally found that support network. “The weekly meetings with the team and the in-house entrepreneurs, where you can bring up any issues you may be facing, have been an extremely good resource and a great sounding board for me,” he says. His peers have been helpful as well. “We’ve gotten great advice from other founders who have already gone through the pain points that we are dealing with right now.”
Beyond the feedback, Garcia feels encouraged through the diversity of talent that surrounds him. “It’s really nice seeing representation from Latinx, African-American and women founders, considering the leaders in the tech space tend to be white males. The Lab lets me see there are opportunities for people who look like me.”
1 https://www.bain.com/insights/closing-the-capital-gap-fueling-the-promise-of-latino-owned-businesses/
Source: morganstanley.com
