January 26, 2022 – Crunchbase today issued a dismaying report concluding that funding to Latinx founders of companies at the venture capital stage decreased from 1.5% of the total capital invested in 2020 to 1.2% in 2021. While NAIC remains deeply disappointed in this decline in funding, our greater concern is the woefully low and insufficient starting point of 1.5%.

The Latinx community – which the U.S. Census Bureau counts as 18.5% of the nation’s population – represents an enormous source of talent that has produced innovative entrepreneurs, executives and business leaders. Yet these sobering statistics speak to a significant segment of our nation being overlooked and marginalized by those controlling the purse strings. As a result, lack of access to capital continues to be the greatest challenge that diverse entrepreneurs and fund managers must contend with routinely.

To be clear, this is not a Latinx problem. It’s an American problem. With adequate investment capital, these Latinx ventures can grow, scale and create more jobs, thereby increasing their collective contribution to the U.S. economy. The nation is missing out on greater GDP from the Latinx communities because of the short-sightedness and biases that remain pervasive throughout the corridors of power.

NAIC encourages the institutional investment and VC community to engage with Latinx and other entrepreneurs of color, learn the innovations developed within their enterprises and solve the omnipresent challenge that while talent is equally distributed in communities, opportunity is not.