Latino entrepreneurs aren’t pitching to venture capitalists in large numbers, but that’s only part of the story of how startups run by Latinos receive funding. The story starts with bootstrapping, continues with friends and family, and ends in front of VCs and angel investors.
Latino startups miss out on a few rounds of funding by the time they get in front of venture capitalists (VC), which makes it even more important for Latino entrepreneurs to pitch and get into the VC game. We spoke to Rebecca Gonzales, assistant executive director at Avinde, a startup accelerator for women in Austin, Texas.
Gonzales makes the point that entrepreneurs often bootstrap their companies (first round of funding) before going to their network, the “friends, family and fools” round (second round), before they actually go to VCs or angel investors.
“Because the Latino community generally doesn’t have access to wealth, the first two rounds of traditional funding are hard to come by. This also extends to our friends and family, so that additional round of both funding and feedback is not available,” Gonzales said.
“So by the time we get in front on potential angel investors we are starting two steps behind our contemporaries that don’t face a lot of the same challenges Latino entrepreneurs have,” she added.
We asked her a few more questions, please read, enjoy and share this story.
Read full story: http://latinalista.com/2014/04/latino-startups-get-funded