The total economic output of US Latinos was two point eight trillion dollars in Yet, despite being a key driving force of the US economy, experts say the capital isn't flowing towards the growth. According to the Latino Business Action Network, Hispanic downed businesses have grown forty four per cent in the last ten years, compared to just four percent for non Latinos, but less than two percent of the available venture capital funding in the US goes into this cohort.
This is the best economy in the world, the free enterprise system, but it largely excludes small businesses and minority owned businesses even today. Rameiro Cavasos is the president and CEO of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Then a big part of it. I think it's just relationships. It's networks, you know, I hate to say it. We're largely invisible. In order to make those connections, Anna Veldez, president and CEO of the Latino Donor Collaborative, says more
vcs need to get out of their comfort zone. You need to start reaching out to places where you actually never reach. People that may not be as well versed, that may not come from your environment, that may not look like you, that may not talk like you, but that that are making a lot of money. Anthony Alcassar is finding himself in the middle of the struggle. His company, Mr. Tortilla is number one on Amazon. They've expanded their product
line and just opened a second factory. My projections are thirty millions between twenty three sixty million for two hundred millions, and I can't get a fair shake, he says. The offers he has received include a majority stake in his business. We worked a whole ice for this, and so if I lose control ownership now, I can guarantee that they're going to polus in philosophies and run our business the
way we want to run it. That's why Latino venture capitalists and banking and community lenders and seedy bias development finance institution, we got to get them to step up. Latitude Ventures is doing just that. The company recently launched a one million dollar fund focused on Latino founded early stage businesses. We're looking hard. We're creating the pipeline. We're creating the visibility so that any Latino and Latino that has been shut out that they can come here and
they're going to get a fair look. Company president sold through. He has his own prediction. My bed is between now and the end of the decade, A trillion dollars a capital should be flowing here so that we can grow GDP at a highly competitive rate versus doing it the same way. Valdez puts that growth into perspective. If Latinos got the same proportion of credit as whites are given, it would translate into adding three point three trillion of
revenue of companies in this country. But it's not only venture capital funding. L B a N reports the odds of loan approval from national banks are sixty percent lower for Latino owned businesses. Industry leaders say it comes down to diversification. It's a proportionate representation at a levels in the bank, from the board all the way to the C suite, all the way to the executive branch, and then to the branches. Actress, singer and entrepreneur Jennifer Lopez
is looking to change the playing field people one. Lopez launched Limitless Labs to raise funds for Latina entrepreneurs, including a partnership with Goldman Sachs, and this past June, Lopez partnered with Gramina America to help distribute fourteen billion dollars in loans to six hundred thousand Latina business owners by the future of this economy will depend on small businesses
and Latino owned businesses because of share demographics. According to the US Census Bureau, more than half of the total US population growth between came from Hispanics, and with Latino entrepreneurs starting small businesses faster than the rest of the start up population, the rising tide will lift all boats in New York. I'm Lisa Mateo, Bloomberg Radio