Next-generation communications agency and ground-breaking venture fund seek to empower new economy growth companies in underserved communities
LERMA/, a next-generation communications agency dedicated to creating content for the Hispanic and multicultural marketplace, announced its alliance with TXV Partners. The goal of the partnership is to identify, counsel and invest in Black and Hispanic startup firms in a wide range of categories. This venture represents a shared conviction by both companies that funding firms in underrepresented communities will bring about more diverse, inclusive and technologically savvy societies across the USA and Latin America.
TXV Partners was founded in 2019 and aims to fill the need for diversity in the venture capital (VC) arena, a space in which less than 3.5% of all VC in the country are Black or Hispanic owned and/or focused. As TXV Founding Partner Brandon Allen stated, “Minority-owned firms have a uniquely catalytic effect in creating opportunity for under-represented populations. Joining forces with LERMA/, we will be able to magnify our ability to build markets with and in minority communities, creating value. This represents a great hope for the companies we fund, as well as for the communities they serve.”
Founded 11 years ago, LERMA/ has championed social issues and has created powerful campaigns in this arena. Examples of this work include the PR x PR campaign that promotes awareness and fundraising for Puerto Rico’s continued efforts of reconstruction after Hurricane Maria. The agency also created the #BeGolden campaign on behalf of the Catholic Charities of Dallas, which is an effort focused on the human part of the immigration debate. More recently, the agency launched its Stop Gun Violence campaign, which is a multi-media effort funded by the agency itself to promote awareness of the horror and social devastation that this type of violence inflicts on communities across the nation.
These agency initiatives have a common denominator that Pete Lerma, Founder and Principal, has vehemently professed, “It is our social responsibility to provide a voice for the individuals and social groups that are more vulnerable and that have systematically been marginalized in this country.”
Adding to this, TXV’s Co-Founding Partner, Marcus Stroud stated, “We are truly fired up to partner with one of the most reputable multicultural agencies in the country. We share a vision to help inclusivity and diversity be the norm for enterprises of all sizes, and to tackle this in the United States, in Latin America and other booming global markets where opportunity arises.”
Pete Lerma emphasized, “We read and hear about so many agencies and holding companies talking about their future plans regarding diversity and social equality. We prefer to do rather than to talk. The time for change is now. And the change cannot be gradual. It has to be decisive and transformative.”
About LERMA/
LERMA/ is a Next Generation communications agency that is at the forefront of business trends, technological advancement, and consumers’ ever-changing relationship to brands. For the past 10 years the agency has made clients and their brands win in the U.S. marketplace by uncovering untapped business opportunities, establishing meaningful connections, and developing creative that is loud and clear. That is, creating meaningful communications that disrupt convention and have a clear and relevant message for consumers. The agency’s work includes award-winning campaigns for clients such as Keurig Dr Pepper, The Home Depot, The American Red Cross, BanCoppel, Ocean Spray and Southwest Airlines, among others.
In recent months, LERMA/ has expanded its suite of services to include InclusiVista, a Diversity & Inclusion practice dedicated to guide clients through the profound and lasting social changes taking place across the globe.
About TXV Partners
TXV Partners is a minority-owned firm that is purposefully planned and built to harness the formidable power of diversity to create differentiated returns on investment.
By having a focus on diversity and, from inception, having a diverse organizational make-up in its leadership team, the firm will invest in founders of new economy companies that understand the value of leveraging diverse social and economic realities. Every company under the TXV fund will share a commitment to bridging the gap between underserved entrepreneurs and their communities, and will seek financial returns derived from social equality and opportunity.
For more information visit https://txv.partners/
