Inicio Ventures

Transforming communities through enhanced opportunities for wealth creation.

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Purpose

Lacking access from meaningful wealth generating sectors, in particular the startup and innovation fields, has contributed to a significant and pervasive wealth gap between the Latinx community and average U.S. households.
While genius and potential are not bound by demographics or culture, the Latinx community in the U.S. has been crowded out of the startup economy engine.

Did you know?
Latinx-led startups receive less than 2% of venture or impact investing capital
Only 1% of venture capital and impact investing professionals identify as Hispanic
While Latinos start more businesses than other groups they remain small; making up only 3% of those with >$1M in annual revenue

To decrease the resulting wealth gap, HIP takes direct aim at increasing Latinx participation rate in the startup economy by building and growing programs that overcome these systemic challenges and enable current Latinx startup leaders to access capital and resources, showcase our exceptional founder talent pipeline, develop the next generation of investors of color and create bridges within and between Latinx and mainstream startup ecosystems.

Overview

Complex, long-standing problems require creative solutions. Leveraging Hispanics in Philanthropy’s 40 years of Latinx expertise and grassroots relationships, we launched and are scaling Inicio Ventures, our unique wealth generation platform that manages impact investments, talent advancement programs and ecosystem building activities. National in scope, this initiative is helping reduce the wealth gap by growing the Latinx communities participation and success within the startup economy.

Value Proposition

Program: Impact Investments
Approach: The Generation 1 Fund and Latinx Campus Fund move money into the hands of Latinx Founders. Agnostic to sector or region, we’ve developed new vetting and investing tools and processes that give credit for all the life and work experiences of entrepreneurs, measure the wealth generating potential of a startup and encourage startups to develop DEI talent strategies.

Program: Pitch Awards
Approach: A high-energy pitch competition series showcasing Latinx founders. Finalists and awardees receive pitch coaching, opportunities for grant-based prizes and post-event amplification. This pipeline development program is a bridge between Latinx entrepreneurs and the mainstream startup ecosystem. Often in partnerships, each event varies by region, sector and/or demographic overlay.

Program: Capstone Venture Fellows
Approach: Increasing diversity at the investor level encourages investment in diverse-led startups. We are developing the next generation of diverse investors through our paid internship program for current grad students. Over 10-weeks, our cohorts develop skills, relationships and knowledge in order to become future diversity-fluent investors.

Program: Latinx Startup Ecosystem Building
Approach: Parlaying our role as leader and convenor, we are bringing Latinx startup ecosystem organizations together through a partnership with Google for Startups that includes an annual summit and ongoing collaboration. By facilitating trust and alignment, we are advancing the ecosystem through effective coordination and collective power.

Program Successes

Inicio Ventures Initiative

The Inicio Ventures initiative has supported over 20 Latinx founders whose startups cumulatively represent ~$1.5B in potential Latinx Wealth Generation and ~2,000 potential Latinx jobs.

Latinx Impact Venture Fellows

Launched in the Fall of 2021, the Latinx Impact Venture Fellows program hosted a successful inaugural cohort of 4 graduate-level students for an investor leadership development program. The program is expanding to host 2 more cohorts, double the size in 2022.

Program Updates

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September 14, 2022

Hispanic Heritage Month Pitch Series

Inicio Ventures and Google for Startups are partnering with leading regional and national organizations to showcase the talented pool of investment-ready Latinx founders…

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August 11, 2022