Hispanic Enterprise - February/March 2008 - (Page 41)

“SERVICES TARGETING U.S. HISPANICS HAVE THE ADVANTAGE OF HINDSIGHT. THEY SEE WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE GENERAL MARKET, WHAT WORKED AND WHAT DIDN’T WORK, AND NOW ARE LAUNCHING IT TWO TO THREE YEARS LATER WITHOUT THE MISTAKES.” EDUARDO HAUSER, CEO, DAILYME.COM Hispanic-centric VCs; Batanga is H.I.G.’s only Hispanic investment, he says. “We weren’t looking for the next-generation Hispanic portal,” Kim says. H.I.G. was looking for a combination of services “uniquely positioned to take advantage of this vertical trend of user communities.” secured $7 million in Series B funding from Sutter Hill Ventures and Mayﬁeld Fund. Series A was $3.2 million inked in 2006. Though the company is awash in new money, founder and CEO Alicia Morga says Consorte will stick more closely to its business plan than did the dotcoms of the 1990s, when Morga was a VC. “I’m fortunate to come from the venture community. I have access to the connections, but connections alone can’t get you the money. We have a business model that makes sense,” she says, as she discusses the speed with which 20 million Hispanics adopted the Internet, as compared to the general market. Still, she promises frugality with her investors’ money. “The 1990s were a great training ground,” she says of the market collapse. “But I’m the daughter of Mexican immigrants. I still drive a 1996 Honda and I’m cheap as hell.” Demian M Bellumio, CEO of Hoodiny in Miami Beach, believes he has earned his stripes. In seven years in the Latin web space, he’s worked with StarMedia and co-founded BroadSpan Capital, a venture group focusing on Latin America. Today, his core service, CyLoop, with its partnership with Warner Music Latina for streaming media for the global Latin market, gives Hoodiny a “vertically integrated media company.” And he believes that gives his private placement partners, who invested some $9 million in his ﬁrst rounds, a strong hook in the market. Now he’s looking for double capital that in 2008. “There’s deﬁnitely an appetite,” he says. “There are a limited number of 41 * IT’S THE TEAM Part of what attracted Kim to Batanga was the team behind the brand. That’s what Daniel Kaﬁe, CEO and founder of Vostu.com, is banking that prospective VCs will like in his team. A Harvard MBA, Kaﬁe brings business and web knowhow to any prospective VC, he says. Already the company has landed seed money from Intel Capital, and is working on its ﬁrst round of VC funding for early next year. “Venture is interested in us because the team is very experienced in Web 2.0. We became very good at bootstrapping before the capital arrived,” says Kaﬁe, who initially self-funded the social networking site, which targets Latinos throughout the U.S. and Latin America with customizable, personalized social networks. “VCs are looking for laterstage, rather than early stage. The days when you’re ﬁrst-stage are pretty much over. There’s a lot of capital ﬂowing around, but [to get] the smart money you really have to have a niche. So we’ve proven our concept.” The market is speckled with dotcoms and organizations believed to have proven their concepts and worth. Consorte Media, a marketing services platform targeting the U.S. Hispanic and regional Latino market for such clients as Best Buy and Monster, in December market is prompting advertisers, their agencies, and venture capitalists to watch closely. Hispanic consumers have strong spending and media viewing habits. The hope is this will “spill over” online. “Traditional” VCs aren’t the only sources of capital to spur he growth. Several years ago, the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce partnered with Bank One Corp. to create Hispania Capital Partners LLC. The private equity fund provides capital to Latino entrepreneurs. Some VCs are bullish on the Hispanic market for several reasons, says John Kim, managing director with H.I.G. Ventures, the Atlanta- and Miami-based VC ﬁrm whose involvement with Batanga. com stretches back to its ﬁrst round in 2006. Tomorrow’s successes in the Hispanic space won’t be shotgun-blast “me, too” social networking, video sharing and ecommerce sites, he says. They’ll be highly targeted by demographic. And they won’t necessarily be attractive to only HISPANIC ENTERPRISE February/March 2008 http://DAILYME.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Hispanic Enterprise - February/March 2008

Hispanic Enterprise - February/March 2008 Contents Briefcase: BIZBUZZ: Business Briefs Briefcase: Trendsetters Briefcase: BIZTECH: Virtually Meeting BizLife: Travel: Madrid's New Attraction Q & A: Mi Case es su Casa Hispanic Commerce: The Agenda Cover Story: The Top 50 Corporations for Supplier Diversity Technology: Hispanic Web 2.0 Success & Motivation: Sweetening the Deal Politics & Government: The Rescue Generation Managing: The Method Franchising: The Hispanic Face of Franchising Chamber Focus: It's Showtime Movers & Shakers: Open for Business Finance & Investing: Getting Your 401(K) on Target

Hispanic Enterprise - February/March 2008

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