LA Venture Podcast: VamosVentures Invests In Underrepresented Founders
On this week's episode of LA Venture, hear from Marcos Gonzalez, the managing partner at VamosVentures, a seed-stage venture fund which invests in Latino and diverse founders. Over half of L.A. County is Latino. A relatively new fund, investments are in the range of $100,000 to $500,000. Seems like a great time to be investing in this community! And, Vamos is hiring...
Key Takeaways:
- Each month, 80,000 Latinos turn 18, which is driven by 92% domestic growth -- not due to immigration. VamosVentures is looking at opportunities within that demographic, with a special interest in consumer packaged goods as well as financial services, health and wellness, retail broadly and media.
- Venture capital versus private equity can lead to investors getting carried away with the latest fad idea. VC that focuses on early-stage companies can learn from private equity to be more circumspect and carefully evaluate the young company at hand.
- VamosVentures says "no" to prospects with a thoughtful four-prong approach. Ultimately, the door is always open.
Every year the number of Hispanics receiving STEM related degrees is doubling. A lot of these young folks with STEM degrees are going to be getting into the engineering world and innovation and entrepreneurial world. That's a great indicator of future.
— Marcos C. Gonzalez
Marcos C. Gonzalez is founder and managing partner of VamosVentures. Marcos is a private equity, venture and angel investor, who has invested in the U.S. and abroad. In between investment funds, Marcos co-founded a tech company in Boston during the first internet wave of the 90s. Before tech entrepreneurship and investing, Marcos worked for the Boston Consulting Group. Marcos graduated from Brown and Harvard Business School.
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