Due to the collective efforts of five highly distinguished executives, Latina and Latino entrepreneurs now have a place to go that supports their early-stage ventures through timely access to capital. This past week the co-founders of L’ATTITUDE Ventures announced the closing of its first institutional fund. The venture capital firm raised $100 million to provide dedicated support to U.S. Latina(o) companies that leverage technology and are in seed to Series A stages.
“This rising generation of Latino Americans represents the single biggest market since the baby boomer generation, with a GDP output greater than most developed nations’ entire economies,” said Oscar Munoz, former United Airlines CEO and Chairman, and General Partner of L’ATTITUDE Ventures.
Munoz joins with his four other General Partners to help Latina(o) entrepreneurs move forward by leveraging their successful careers in a range of industries. The fund provides timely capital to Latina(o) founders who are pursuing their visions. The four other GPs are:
Sol Trujillo: an international business executive and global CEO with three decades’ experience in the dynamic telecommunications and media industries,
Gary Acosta: Co-founder and CEO of NAHREP – National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals® and Partner at The Mortgage Collaborative,
Kennie Blanco: former Portfolio Manager, Systematic Active Equity (SAE) at BlackRock and Portfolio & Algorithmic Trader for the Equities Division Portfolio & Algorithmic Trader at UBS Investment Bank, and
Laura Moreno Lucas is Founder and CEO of Pandocap and formerly New Listings & Capital Markets Managing Director at Nasdaq and Strategic Account Executive Commercial Business Unit at Salesforce.
Thanks to JPMorgan Chase that served as the strategic anchor investment with prominent investors, Trujillo Group and Bank of America, L’ATTITUDE Ventures is well-positioned to fill an important opportunity gap in the U.S. economy. By providing timely capital and support to the Latina(o) growth cohort, the vc firm is catalyzing the “most under-invested and under-catalyzed demographic in the U.S. that has tremendous existing and future growth”.
Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase stands with the five GPs, recognizing the important role that Latina(o) businesses have and the difficulties they face in obtaining funding, stating, “Latino-led businesses are critical to the U.S. economy but often lack access to capital and resources for growth. Our investment in L’ATTITUDE Ventures builds on our broader commitment to support U.S. Latino entrepreneurs and small businesses across the country.”
The fund’s press announcement provides data that crystallizes the partners’ desire to give the entrepreneurial Latino community greater support.
“Latina(o)s are the most entrepreneurial yet undercapitalized growth cohort in the U.S. They are the equivalent of the seventh-largest economy in the world, right here within our borders. Their total economic output in 2019 was $2.7 trillion—having generated $1 trillion of incremental GDP between 2010 and 2019—yet receive less than 1% of all invested capital by private equity and venture capital, according to the 2021 Bain Capital Study Report.”
To accomplish their goals of closing the opportunity gap of Latina(o) entrepreneurs, L’ATTITUDE Ventures established a multi-layered approach by:
- Providing visibility to those they have invested,
- Mentoring founders and teams of early stage companies via its global operating and leadership experience that includes two GPs who are former Fortune 150 CEOs, and
- Making timely and unique connections between the early stage companies and corporations and their distribution channels that accelerates growth by shortening the customer acquisition and distribution cycles.
A number of institutional investors are behind the fund’s mission to give Latina(o)s greater access to capital. They are MassMutual, Barclays, Royal Bank of Canada, Polaris Limited Partners (Oscar Munoz), Cisco Investments through its Aspire Fund, Churchill, an affiliate of Nuveen, and Morgan Stanley.
“I commend the institutions who came in—and stepped up first… These are the smart investors who know it’s time to stop merely giving speeches and begin investing in this crucial Latina and Latino growth cohort, which is so essential to our economy,” says Trujillo.
Even though Latina(o)s create the majority of net new businesses, they face steep hurdles in finding funding. Once the full potential of the Latina(o) entrepreneurial community is unlocked, job and wealth creation across a broader labor base will increase for Latina(o)s.
“When Sol spoke to me about creating L’ATTITUDE Ventures, I knew immediately that he was the one person who had the business relationships and experience to create a world-class investment fund for Latino-led startups, With NAHREP, I have seen firsthand how Latino entrepreneurs can move the ball forward in terms of closing homeownership and wealth gaps in America,” says GP Acosta.
The next big step for the fund is the The L’ATTITUDE Conference that is held annually each September. This year it will be a forum for founders to compete for up to $20 million of capital from L’ATTITUDE Ventures. The event will also be a platform for startups to pitch to other vetted potential investors, showcasing “the value of U.S. Latinos in today’s New Mainstream Economy”.
Well-funded Latina(o)-owned companies now move ahead with a rising generation of young U.S. Latino consumers. That connection is why investors are behind L’ATTITUDE, foreseeing strong returns on investment for decades to come.
