The idea for Google for Startups’ latest venture was born during a conversation between Kaili Emmrich, head of North America, and Luis Suarez, a Latinx entrepreneur in Google’s Founders Academy.
Despite being one of the fastest growing demographics of founders in the U.S., Emmrich wrote in a blog post today, only 3% of Latinx-owned companies ever reach $1 million in revenue. Last year, Emmrich asked Suarez what programs he’d found most helpful when scaling his company. Suarez and other founders spoke again and again about Visible Hands, a Boston-based venture capital firm that invests solely in underrepresented founders.
Today, Google for Startups and Visible Hands announced a partnership to run VHLX, a virtual, 20-week fellowship program to support a new wave of early-stage Latinx founders across the U.S. The 20 startups accepted to the program will receive $10,000 in funding and participate in programming run by Google and Visible Hands.
Creating funding equity
Even as venture capital funding continued to increase last year, the distribution of funds was not equitable. In 2021, Latinx founders received around 2% of VC funding nationally, according to Crunchbase, which was around the same percentage as the year prior.
“If you think about deal flow, it’s about starting at the very top of the funnel,” said Yasmin Cruz Ferrine, general partner and co-founder at Visible Hands. “How can you expect to have a deeper bench of Latinx-led companies make it to Series B, if there isn’t an initiative that’s happening at day zero.”
Cruz Ferrine said this program will work with early-stage founders to provide financial support, resources and access to networks. She described their goal as helping companies get their first 100 users, which will set them up to move forward toward bigger opportunities.
In addition to VHLX, Visible Hands also runs a 14-week, virtual-first accelerator for underrepresented founders to scale their venture-backed startups. Since September 2021, alumni from this accelerator’s first cohort have raised over $14 million.
Google for Startups has also been funding Latinx founders through its Latinos Founders Fund, which provides up to $100,000 in funding.
A different kind of startup program
This program is created by Latinx founders for Latinx founders, Cruz Ferrine said. She is El Salvadorian, and Yulkendy Valdez, Visible Hands’ product manager who will lead the teams through VHLX, is Dominican. Google for Startups is also helping them put together a lineup of Latinx founders for programming.
“One of the things…that makes this unique is the team that is building out this programming experience,” Cruz Ferrine said. “It should help create a good amount of psychological safety for these founders that I don’t think can be replicated with many other teams.”
Startups in VHLX will meet weekly with Latinx founders who have raised capital and participate in wellness sessions to make a plan for navigating the highs and lows of entrepreneurship. Google for Startups will host office hours and workshops on topics like objectives and key results, business acumen and leadership.
But VHLX will not focus solely on business development, Cruz Ferrine said. The fellowship will also make space to celebrate Latinx culture.
“We are less interested in teaching our founders how to build a business and more interested in creating a space for our fellows to experiment, fail and adapt while staying true to who they are,” Valdez said in a statement. “More importantly, this will be a program where you can speak Spanglish (a mix of Spanish and English), have Bad Bunny playing in the background of one of our sessions and have serious conversations about navigating the startup landscape as a Latinx founder.”
