Moneda Moves (103): How Latin America is holding major business power
Feliz viernes, Moneda Moves readers! We’re feeling it’s an especially noteworthy Friday this week — as we were highlighted in Yahoo! Finance for our work raising awareness about the Latinx influence in the world of business. You can see the full video and read the piece here.
Growing up, I observed the importance of race, generational wealth and how this affects our access to opportunity and capital first-hand. These factors would influence your ability to have a quality education, open doors to coveted careers and continue to build wealth. Knowing this has been a fundamental catalyst for where I'm headed today in the creation of a journalistic-minded platform at the intersection of Latinx people and money.
I am honored to have readers like you join us on this journey to learn more about our community in this context.
I spoke about Latinx money stories I'd like to see covered in an interview with Eduardo Sanchez at Yahoo for Hispanic Heritage Month. And you know that here at Moneda Moves, we’re not only about uplifting Latinx in the world of money, but also the journalists consistently reporting on our communities, which Eduardo consistently delivers on while serving as a producer for “In the Know.” Thank you for inviting me into the fold, Eduardo!
Con poder,
Lyanne
Headlines to put on your radar.
Beatriz Acevedo, SUMA Wealth, featured in Forbes: In a recent Forbes piece, “The Rainmakers: Meet The Women Over 50 Creating New Ways To Make And Move Money,” we learn more about the founder and CEO of Suma Wealth, Beatriz Acevedo, who started her career in Mexico media and eventually founded a company herself (which many of you may recognize, we are mitú).
Much later, she founded Suma to fill a void in the Latinx community and acquired $1.1 million in pre-seed funding from investors, including Backstage Capital, and is now working to help the Latinx users of the platform improve their relationship with money.
Rising voices in business, fintech, entrepreneurship and beyond.
State of the Global Latinx Power 🌎: You’ve heard about Latinx business power in the US, but when we take a step back and look at Latin America and the global stage at large—what do our communities’ impact look like? This week on IG Live, economist and host of Taco Financiero Podcast Enrique Castro shared more information about what the power of the business community in LATAM looks like, especially when you cross over into fintech and digital banking.
Sadly, our IG Live seems to be suffering platform glitches — but as always, we have the takeaways from our “tip-of-the-iceberg” discussion about the global impact of our communities 😉:
Domestically
In the US, the Latinx community is 60 million strong, representing a $2.6 trillion GDP (Latino Donor Collaborative).
The number of Latino-owned businesses has grown 34% over the last 10 years compared to just 1% for all other small businesses (Stanford).
Yet, only 2.4 percent of total venture capital funding went to Black and Latinx founders (Stanford), though Taco Financiero’s Castro believes this is subject to change as Latinx representation across board of directors at powerful companies and Congress increases.
Globally
Private capital investment in Latin America reached $10.3 billion in 400 deals in 1H21, more than twice as 1H20 (LAVCA Venture Investors).
The LATAM industry attracting the most capital is financial technology. It has an immense opportunity to close a gap for an underserved community.
The pandemic was a huge accelerator for technology adoption in the LATAM region. As an example, 52 million Latin American consumers bought online for the first time (EBANX).
Profit-growth in Latin America is expected to be much higher than in other emerging and developed countries (Credicorp Capital Asset Management).
Thank you for joining us! Until next week, catch us here on Moneda Moves.