By Latin Heat News Services
Latina and minority-owned Canela Media has announced that it secured $3 million in seed money, bringing total funding raised to date to $5 million.
The investment represents a “significant growth milestone” for the New York-based digital media startup. The $3 million infusion comes BBG Ventures, Reinventure Capital, Mighty Capital, Angeles Investors, Portfolia’s Rising America Fund, and Alumni Ventures Group, all of which are majority-female and BIPOC, states Canela Media in a press statement.
The company says the new capital will be used to drive the continued growth of Canela.TV, a streaming service founded in 2019 that offers films, episodic series, and children programming, most in Spanish and some in English. Launched just last May, the free, ad-supported streaming service offers films from Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Colombia and other Latin American countries, some with subtitles in English.
Canela.TV is available on Roku, Apple TV, Android TV, and Amazon Fire TV.
LATINO MARKET OPPORTUNITY
“We launched Canela Media in response to a large and growing market need,” says Isabel Rafferty, the company’s founder and CEO. She adds that digital media and over-the-top platforms reaching Hispanic audiences, especially youth, have been limited. “This funding will not only aid in growing and improving our flagship product, Canela.TV, but it will also fuel our goal of becoming the leading digital media company connecting with U.S. Latinos,” she says. The company’s products are aimed at young, bilingual Latinos.
Adds Rafferty, “I am grateful for the opportunity our investors are giving us and applaud them for empowering other women to break stereotypes and raise the profile of Latinos in this country. The response to Canela.TV thus far has been overwhelmingly positive, and we plan to continue delivering on bringing diverse, high-quality programming to our audience.”
Raffety has a long history in advertising media. Before starting Canela Media, she co-founded another company, Spain’s Mobvious America, which she led as CEO. Rafferty also worked in digital sales at ImpreMedia and AdsMovil and operations and sales for Entravision.
LACK OF FUNDING FOR LATINA STARTUPS
Canela Media says the latest funds come amidst the current pandemic environment, where venture capital deals with startups funded exclusively by women dropped to 4.3% in the first quarter of the year versus 7.1% in the first quarter of 2019 as reported by the financial data firm PitchBook. Furthermore, venture capital firms only allocate 2.2% of their funding to female founders and for Latinas this percentage drops down to a negligible 0.4%, with very little funding allocated to tech projects, according to the New York startup.