MEXICO CITY.- The Mexican-American engineer Noramay Cadena worked at Boeing a few years ago, when the aeronautics company was looking for contracts with NASA to be a private provider of manned space flights.
Boeing, founded several decades ago, competed with SpaceX, founded just this century... and which eventually took off with the project.
"I would come to the office every day thinking that what I would really like is to work for the team that was looking to beat the usual traditional," says Cadena, who as the first in her family to go to college (she is an MIT graduate ) knew what it is to challenge obstacles.
She is facing a Goliath, a giant who believes that things should be done as they have been done and that they should be done by those —for example,
men and especially non-Hispanic whites—
who were already doing them.
That prompted Cadena to plunge into another
world of innovation
: that of venture capital.
Today she is a managing partner of Supply Change Capital, a fund that finances food technology companies looking to overcome the climate emergency.
Cadena
is not the only Latina to have made her way
in Silicon Valley.
Especially in the venture capital industry, operated by those investors and large funds that finance the promises and ventures of the future.
Noramay CadenaCourtesy
Over the past decade, the number of Latino VCs—the nickname given to venture capitalists—
has
risen at a relatively steady pace, even if the numbers remain low compared to those of non-Hispanic whites.
Last year,
Latinos and Latinas in VC grew by 36%
, making up 2% of the entire industry, according to the LatinxVC group, founded in 2019 to create more avenues of income.
"I have
seen more people like me
: more investors acting as limited partners or investors with their own funds or getting promoted within their companies, more companies wanting to diversify," says Samara Mejia Hernandez, founder of Chingona Ventures. , a Chicago-based VC fund.
"Although, yes, in numbers we are not that many yet."
We encourage others interested in entering the industry to know that there is more room here"
Mariela salas executive director of latinxvc
Now those
gains are in jeopardy
.
Global economic unrest — inflation, cutbacks for fear of a slowdown, recent bank collapses including Silicon Valley Bank — could reverse the incursion of more diverse people into the VC industry, several Latina investors tell Noticias Telemundo.
"Will those who have supported demographically diverse company founders and entrepreneurs continue to support? Or will we be the first to be withdrawn from support? It is a very latent concern," says Maria Salamanca, partner at VC firm Ulu Ventures, whose director is the also Latina Miriam Rivera.
The outlook is not very hopeful.
But these women have an idea of how
the situation could be coped with
and the improvements needed so that the benefit that everyone receives by diversifying the industry is maintained in the longer term.
defy the odds
Diversity in the VC world is key because it is where you decide what types of people and projects receive capital and seed funding.
Those VC funds can also help small businesses scale their businesses to reach more people, become more profitable, and serve more groups.
Additionally, VC firms with demographically diverse teams typically have better returns on their funds than highly homogeneous firms.
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In the last decade, barely 1% of the money distributed by the largest VC companies has remained in the hands of Latino entrepreneurs, despite the fact that Hispanics in the US have increased in population, in their purchasing power and in the number of companies establishing each year.
"Every time we go to a meeting to ask for financing, a
pitch,
we have to defy those odds," says Daniela Corrente, who is in charge of strategy and business at Suma Wealth, a fintech
(
finance technology) company dedicated to
improving financial education
for Latinos so they know how to invest and save.
If we Latinas have something, it's silence and tenacity"
Daniela Corrente
Corrente says that Suma Wealth is one of the very few companies with Latina executives;
Of 30,000 fintech
companies
in the United States,
only 0.3% are led by Hispanics
.
And part of the funds for the company are thanks to other Latinas who manage venture capital.
Latinas and other women not only invest in companies and ventures that are owned by women or by people who are equally Latino, black, Asian or indigenous, says Mejia Hernandez.
But they are more
likely to see the potential
in companies from those groups.
"The way I look at investing is going to be very different than the way most investors who are older white males with a certain network look at it... where they might say, 'oh, this is just a stock market. niche,'" says Mejia Hernandez.
"I do understand why the community needs a certain product," she adds.
Chingona Ventures invested in Suma Wealth.
Mejia Hernandez also points out that investing is not just giving money: it has implications because as the company that receives the funds grows, it can benefit other Latinos from the same neighborhood or from the same line of business because it will recruit, build networks, exchange suppliers and employees with shares or
equity
they will be able to reinvest those funds.
What is needed to prop up more people
The possible setback due to economic fears is felt especially among Latinas because
they were barely making progress
in the industry.
By 2020, Latinas in the United States barely
managed 1.2%
of the shares under management (investments and funds managed on behalf of clients or to distribute to emerging companies and
start-ups
), according to data compiled by Paul Gompers, a Harvard professor, and Sarah Kunst, CEO of Cleo Capital.
There are also very few stocks being run by black and Asian women.
"I wish the numbers were much higher," says Kunst.
"Because with things the way they are, money is being left on the table as well as great ideas because there aren't enough of us," she adds.
But Kunst and various other women in the VC world do see a
light at the end of the tunnel
, especially since more and more data like hers is pointing the way and directing attention to unfinished business.
"By shining a light on the statistics and creating ways to share that information, with groups that offer opportunities for
partnerships and community building
, I feel like we are going to be able to make a difference in making this industry more representative of the American people." says Mariela Salas, the executive director of LatinxVC.
Mariela SalasCourtesy
LatinxVC, for example, has internship and mentoring programs so that "others interested in entering the industry know that there is more room here."
There are also similar groups like BlackVC, Latinas in Tech, or L'Attitude Ventures that help direct investments or build lists of hireable people so companies don't say the only reason they don't diversify is because they can't find qualified candidates.
Thus little by little there will be more people "who understand the value of
diversity not only for social reasons but for its economic benefit
," says Corrente, from Suma Wealth.
Noramay Cadena, the engineer-turned-investor, says it will continue to be of paramount importance "to send the elevator that took us back down so that other Latinos and others can get on it."
That can be done, he says, if the various funds invest in each other, as well as co-invest so they can spread more funds to certain
start-ups.
He also suggests that they collaborate to share limited partners, say those with more money, so they can find out about diverse fund 'B' if they were already interested in looking into diverse fund 'A'.
So even if it's harder to become an investor or get investment in the short term, these Latinas say they won't push any further.
Corrente sums it up like this: "As Latinas in the corporate world, if we have anything it's silence and tenacity."