L’ATTITUDE Ventures partners with Visible Hands VC to launch a new fellowship for Latino founders

Visible Hands partners with L’ATTITUDE Ventures to create VHLV, a 9-week fellowship program to support pre-seed and seed-stage Latino founders.

Summary: Visible Hands, a pre-seed venture firm, has partnered with L’ATTITUDE Ventures to launch VHLV, a eight-week fellowship program that supports overlooked Latino founders in building successful startups by providing holistic founder support from business education to wellness.

United States, September 25, 2023

Visible Hands has officially partnered with L’ATTITUDE Ventures to launch VHLV, an eight-week fellowship program that supports overlooked Latino founders in building successful startups.

VHLV’s participating entrepreneurs are a part of the 2023 L’ATTITUDE Ventures Match-Up program. The Fellowship program targets pre-seed and seed-stage entrepreneurs working on scalable tech-enabled solutions and/or venture-backed ideas reshaping leading industries.

VHLV will provide holistic founder support from business education to wellness to Latino founders whose rich voices and diverse perspectives will elevate the country to higher levels of opportunity and access.

“We have always admired the incredible hands-on work that Visible Hands does with founders and we are thrilled to partner with the team to extend the coaching, connections, and visibility that L’ATTITUDE Ventures offers its 2023 Match-Up participants,” said Pete Amaro, Partner at L’ATTITUDE Ventures. “We have an aligned mission to develop the next generation of entrepreneurs by going beyond capital and we are excited to roll up our sleeves to accelerate growth and outcomes for this talented group of founders.”

Visible Hands Product Manager, Yulkendy Valdez, is excited to lead this program, having been a Latino founder herself and directly understanding the need for further support systems for the growing population of entrepreneurs.

“As an Afro-Latina founder, I have experienced first-hand the pressure of being the only one with an accent, the only one with curly hair, the only one carrying the pressures of the feeling of being in two worlds, but not belonging in either,” Valdez said. “Now that I am in a position to support founders at Visible Hands, I see it as a great responsibility to create an environment in which Latinos can be themselves and excel at their fullest potential.”

Visible Hands is a VC firm that funds and empowers underrepresented founders launching high-growth startups. Starting on day zero, Visible Hands puts its founders first in order to help its cohorts of overlooked entrepreneurs work full-time to build their startups.

Visible Hands is made for and by women and racial minorities — having launched its first program in June 2020, Visible Hands believes in the genius and market opportunity of talent overlooked by the innovation economy. Women and racial minorities make up ~70% of the US population, yet less than 10% of VC invested capital goes to that demographic.

VHLV is an extension of the Visible Hands mission to support overlooked talent, in conjunction with L’ATTITUDE Ventures’ efforts to create more inclusion and connections in the startup ecosystem.

Founded in 2019 by Sol Trujillo and Gary Acosta, L’ATTITUDE Ventures is a purpose-driven venture capital firm on a mission to catalyze the most entrepreneurial cohort in the U.S., by investing in businesses led by Latinos.

100% of L’ATTITUDE Ventures funding goes to companies with Latina(o) leadership. In contrast to the broader ecosystem, where Latino founders receive less than 1% of venture capital funding, L’ATTITUDE Ventures is focused on investing in Latino-owned businesses that are early-stage companies with high growth potential.

L’ATTITUDE Ventures also believes investor representation is key to addressing the Latino funding gap and is proud to note that all five senior partners of the firm identify as Latina(o). This contrasts with the 2.1% of general partners in the venture capital industry who identify as Latina(o).

Quotables:

Yulkendy Valdez, VH Product Manager and VHLV Lead

• “As an Afro-Latina founder, I have experienced first-hand the pressure of being the only one with an accent, the only one with curly hair, the only one carrying the pressures of the feeling of being in two worlds — but not belonging in either. Now that I am in a position to support founders at Visible Hands, I see it as a great responsibility to create an environment in which Latinos can be themselves and excel at their fullest potential.”

Pete Amaro, L’ATTITUDE Ventures Partner

• “We have always admired the incredible hands-on work that Visible Hands does with founders and we are thrilled to partner with the team to extend the coaching, connections, and visibility that L’ATTITUDE Ventures offers its 2023 Match-Up participants. We have an aligned mission to develop the next generation of entrepreneurs by going beyond capital and we are excited to roll up our sleeves to accelerate growth and outcomes for this talented group of founders.”