In this newsletter:
Fellowship Class 2
Bay Area get together
Community Wins & Solidarity
Open opportunities
Let’s all welcome our Spring 2022 Class!
We are so excited to announce the graduation of our second cohort of LatinxVC venture fellows. This class comes from a range of amazing organizations, including Goldman Sachs, Google, Dataminr, and more. They all were eager to learn more about the nuances of venture capital and how to break into the industry. After 7 weeks of programming that included how to evaluate an early-stage startups to hearing directly from LPs, we believe this cohort is ready to break into the industry! Please join us in congratulating them and reach out to us (fellowship@latinxvcs.com) if you’d like to chat with any of them as you’re building out your investment teams. 📑
Bay Area gathering @ NEA was
We host events year round in the Bay Area, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Miami based on where our members are based. Our Board Members, Vanessa Larco and Jacob hosted our Bay Area community in May at NEA. Thank you all who were able to make it out, it’s always good catching up!
Our Community (wins💰 and solidarity)
🎉 We had several wins this past quarter with members of our community making serious moves on the capital side. Lets all celebrate them!
In one of the largest capital raises for a Latina-owned startup in the U.S., entrepreneurs Jess Morales Rocketto and Stephanie Valencia have raised $80 million to launch a new Hispanic media company called the Latino Media Network. (via Axios)
Chingona Ventures, a three-year-old, Chicago-based venture pre-seed fund led by our very own Samara Hernandez has closed a new fund with $52 million in capital commitments. (via Techcrunch).
A trio of PayPal Ventures alumni has raised $158 million for Infinity Ventures, a new early-stage venture firm dedicated to investing in fintech startups globally. Congrats to Mario Ruiz! (via Techcrunch)
Base10, a venture firm founded only four years ago, just closed its third fund with $460 million in capital commitments. Because co-founder Ade Ajao — originally from Spain — is half Nigerian, the new fund makes Base10 — which now has $1.3 billion in assets under management — the world’s largest Black-led venture capital fund, it says. (via Techcrunch)
Visible Hands, a pre-seed venture fund focused on underrepresented founders, has closed its first round of funding at $10.5 million. (via BizJournal)
Vanessa Larco received the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) Rising Star award. (via NVCA)
Unfortunately we also had a tough week in May with the Uvalde shooting. 😞 It was not long ago when our community was targeted in an El Paso, Texas Walmart by a white nationalist and anti-immigrant gunman. 23 lives lost.
We know the statistics all too well. Latinx individuals are 4x as likely to be wounded by an assault with a gun as our white peers and our Latinx children and teens are 3x more likely to be killed by gun homicide than their white peers. We recognize there is a lot of work to do for our community, that it requires more than just one group, but our members carry this reality with us everyday. We are reminding each other to take the space to feel and to grieve together.
What we are up to 👀
Our Executive Director search is coming to an end. Stay tuned for an update soon!
We will be having more events this year in NYC, Miami, and Bay Area. We can’t wait to see your faces there!
We want to hear from the community, we are learning and growing as an organizatione everyday so shoot Maria (president@latinxvcs.com) and Lisette (vp@latinxvcs.com) a note if you have suggestions or want to get more involved.
If you know of organizations or VC funds that want to work with LatinxVC or potentially sponsor future events, let us know!
Opportunities
Analyst, Sozo Ventures (email lgomez@sozo.ventures)
Thanks for reading!
If you’re a Latinx in VC, become a LatinxVC member here.
If you’re Latinx interested in a career in venture capital, sign up here.
If you’re an LP interested in supporting Latinx investors and GPs, shoot us an email at LPs@latinxvcs.com
If you’re media or press, shoot us an email at press@latinxvcs.com
Thanks for reading!
-- Your LatinxVC leadership team: Maria, Lisette, Juan-Pablo, Ilse, Jacob, Hector, Rami, Carmen, Noramay, Jomayra, Vanessa, Marjorie, Al.