Isabel y Fernando: Venture Capitalists

I'm all about venture capital, but... I guess it didn't occur to the inventors of this project that MAYBE--just maybe--not everyone loves the results of Queen Isabel's "venture capital" investments. Christ! What an insult to the people of Native American descent in the New World. Oh, just skim through it. It's impressive...

Friday, April 22, 2005
"Capital hunt challenge for Latinos" Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal - by Robert Mullins

Queen Isabela I of Spain originally rejected Christopher Columbus' pitch for venture capital to fund his three-ship expedition in 1492. But after her accountant told her the amount requested was no more than what the kingdom would spend to entertain a visiting dignitary for a week, Isabela relented and gave Columbus 2,000 maravedis in A round funding.

Columbus' trip lead to the discovery of the New World, generating an incalculable rate of return on Isabela's original investment.

"Yes, the first venture capitalist was a Latina," said Marcela Davison Aviles, of San Jose, founder of the Isabela Project, a program to give today's Latino entrepreneurs a better chance at landing venture capital in Silicon Valley.

The project's two-fold aim is to teach Latinos how to gain access to the VC world and to develop investment products that could help Latino startups grow.

Latino entrepreneurs have difficulty securing venture funding or other investment capital because, despite their growing numbers and economic clout, they have few connections to people in the clubby VC community, those in the Hispanic business community say. VC partners unfamiliar with Hispanic entrepreneurs are reluctant to fund a company that may sail off the edge of the business world. And there aren't enough Queen Isabelas at those firms who can greenlight a fellow Latino's expedition today.

"If we don't engage this population to be part of the innovation economy, that is going to hurt California," says Margarita Quihuis, a Mexican-American venture capitalist who is currently a Reuters Fellow at Stanford University studying innovative business financing.

Latinos made up 14 percent of the U.S. population in 2004, making them the largest minority group, and more of them live in California than in any other state. They are projected to grow to 15 percent of the U.S. population by 2015 and to 25 percent by 2050, according to a 2004 Isabela Project report based on 2000 U.S. Census figures. Minorities are forecast to be the fast-growing part of the work force in the future and most of them will be Latinos.

Further, 87 percent of the new businesses launched in the U.S. between 1992 and 1997 were Latino-owned and 39 percent were Latina-owned, the Isabela report states.

However, only 5 percent of Latino startups were funded with venture capital and only 4.25 percent of U.S. Small Business Administration-backed loans were granted to Latino businesses. Sixty percent of Latino businesses were started with borrowed money, versus only 5 percent to 10 percent of white-owned startups.

The Isabela Project -- funded by the Milken Institute, an economic think tank -- is developing an educational program for Latino entrepreneurs on how to build their businesses to make the best presentation to angel investors, venture capital firms, or other potential investors, says Ms. Aviles.

"What should the PowerPoint look like?" she said, citing an example of some of the ground covered.

The Isabela Project is trying to develop an asset-backed securities product to finance Hispanic startups. SBA loans would be bundled together, just as mortgages are, to securitize community development or small business loans. This would make possible smaller investments in Hispanic startups than VCs want to bother with, and give the entrepreneur more options on how to use the funds than they can with an SBA loan, Ms. Aviles said.

The overhead for a VC firm to perform due diligence, advise the new firm and otherwise manage the investment is basically the same regardless of the amount invested. They would rather invest $20 million in a firm than $1 million to maximize their return, and so would pass on smaller deals.

Private equity funding isn't much of an option for Hispanic startups either, said Richard Leza, founder and managing partner of Azul Venture Partners and founder of A1 Research Corp., a consulting firm.

Silicon Valley VC firms invest primarily in technology companies, and few Hispanic businesses are in tech. Private equity investments are available to a wide range of industries, said Mr. Leza. But private equity (in which individuals, some of whom may be VC partners, make their own investment) is available mostly for "mature firms," that have some solid revenue coming in.

But even for Hispanic tech startups, if they can't get their business plan on a VC partner's desk, the VC will never know about them.

"It's like having a party. If you're never invited, you're never going to find the door and you're never going to find the party," he said.

Angel investors can be another source of startup funding, but since the dot-com crash, "The angels have all gone up to heaven." said Stanford's Ms. Quihuis.

Immigration history works against Hispanics, she added. Many immigrants from India or other Asian countries are "the educated elite," she said, who come from wealthy families to attend graduate school and more easily connect with investors. Some Cubans had a similar advantage, she said, as well-to-do families left Cuba with their financial assets after the Communist revolution in 1959 and settled in Miami.

But Mexicans, who make up 63 percent of all Latinos living in the U.S., immigrated here largely to escape poverty.

Mexicans would have a better chance of meeting VCs if they network with other Latinos, she said, by combining business groups, called "diasporas," from Brazil, Guatemala, Mexico and other Latin American countries to have more collective clout.

There are other efforts of note to bridge the gap between Hispanics and investors, said The Isabela Project's Ms. Aviles.

The California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) in November 2004 added $500 million to a $1.5 billion hedge "fund-of-funds" to pursue "non-traditional investment strategies." The California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) in January created a $100 million private equity fund-of-funds to be invested in "new and next generation" ventures. Ms. Aviles sees both moves creating investment opportunities for Hispanic entrepreneurs.

Locally, Hispanic-Net, a Palo Alto-based networking organization helps Hispanics find investors.

As successive Hispanic generations build ties to the venture capital community, the disparity should disappear. "It's inevitable," Ms. Aviles said.

But that doesn't mean it will happen all by itself, says Dennis King, executive director of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Silicon Valley. If Columbus hadn't discovered the New World, someone inevitably would have, he agreed. But still, someone at sometime would have to take the initiative to do it.

Robert Mullins covers small business, telecommunications, education, retail and media for The Business Journal. Reach him at (408) 299-1829. All contents of this site © American City Business Journals Inc. All rights reserved.
from: http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2005/04/25/focus1.html (retrieved 23 Oct 2007)