By Martha Vera,
Honoray Consul of Spain
Ebetuel (Beto) Pallares is the general partner of Audaz Capital. Audaz means audacious and as his website says, Audaz is for Audacious Founders. He was born in Cd. Juarez, Mexico and raised in El Paso, Texas.
Beto’s story began with his childhood. His name, Ebetuel, is not a common name in the Americas. Beto said he had met only three Ebetuels in all his travels. “My name is a derivation of a biblical name; Ebetuel was the father of Rebecca. Rebecca was the wife of Isaac. In Hebrew, it roughly translates into he who is like a father.”
He stated that Audaz is a fairly new firm, a little under two years old. It is an early-stage technology venture capital fund headquartered here in El Paso. “It invests in technologies that impact access to water, health, education, finances, and food in a cost-effective capital efficient way. Primarily we look for entrepreneurs that are off the beaten path. They are not your Silicon Valley elites. These are usually people who have educational pedigree, they have work experience, and don’t have access to capital the way other people might. That’s why we set out with Audaz, with that vision in mind,” Beto explained.
His education and experience are impressive with a BA in economics from Brandeis University and MBA and Ph.D. in International Business Strategy from UTEP. He was a professor of entrepreneurship and strategic management at New Mexico State University where he held the Bill and Sharron Sheriff Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurship. He is a Kauffman Fellow and a Presidio Fellow.
He got his start at Joseph Advisory which does a very similar advisory service but mostly for venture funds. Later a local company gave him the opportunity to venture on his own. He noticed in 2020, after the George Floyd tragedy, that only 2% of monies for ventures were going to African American and Hispanic businesses. Fund managers were not being supported. Only 1% to 2% of employees at venture capital fund companies are Hispanics. Beto explained, “It’s a very small number of Hispanics in the field. How do you get into the venture capital business? There weren’t even courses that you could take. Now there are courses you can take. Venture Capital wasn’t really a career path. A friend you knew thought you were cool because you went to the same fraternity, lived in same neighborhood, went to the same school, or you belonged to the same Country Club, so, you got a job there. From there you got promoted. That’s how you got into venture capital. It’s very hard for Latinos because we don’t have that background. After George Floyd, some of the major organizations in the country were feeling the need to address this disparity and in particular Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan, PayPal, and Apple. We had all these institutions and large corporations putting capital behind the idea of increasing the number of Latinos, women, and African Americans that are managing capital to invest in underrepresented entrepreneurs.”
He stated that he went to conferences for years where he was the only Hispanic there. Three years ago, he was sitting in the back. A panel of Latinos and Latinas were talking about access to capital. One person that was in the panel said, ‘Well you should talk to the OG, the original gangster of Latino Venture Capital.’ The panelist was pointing out a man in the corner who had been doing this for a long time. “I really was inspired to get back to the basics of winning, to get back to formalizing access to capital, particularly in the southwest. We didn’t have that here. I see it as a privilege.” Beto added.
Beto sees his career as a privilege because of his humble beginnings as one of eight children who immigrated to the United States. His father had a second-grade education who had taught himself to read Spanish at 30 years of age because he wanted to read the Bible. Beto was the first in his family to go to college, the first to get a masters, and the first to get a PhD. He added, “It’s really a privilege to be able to work in an industry like this. I was an endowed chair in entrepreneurship and finance at New Mexico State. You know I rang the bell at the NASDAQ, raised money for companies, took a company public, and worked with high tech companies.”
He kept his Father’s 1974 half ton Chevy pickup. Beto explained, “That pickup means a lot to me because that’s the truck my dad drove when we immigrated to El Paso in 1978. On Sundays the entire family would drive back to Juarez to visit family. My parents would buy tortillas and chicharrónes and make taquitos. We would drive back to El Paso and if it was raining, or it was cold, the entire family would be inside the truck. It was my dad, my sister, and my mom holding two kids. My brothers all sat in the back on the bench of the truck. When we got to the border, the INS officer would look at the passport and take a picture of the entire family. He would look at my parents’ signature that was on it. The INS officer proceeded to count and say, ‘OK where’s nine?’ My father pointed at the well where the break in the clutch was. That’s where I sat for three years because that’s where I fit. The point of it is, it doesn’t matter what you do, never forget where you came from.”
He adds, “This is a statement of audacity.“ To do this in a place that’s almost forgotten, in terms of innovation because it is a privilege and a responsibility. I believe you can’t have access to something and keep it to yourself. You must share it, you have to propagate it, and you have to leave a legacy of having done something positive particularly in your own community.”
The logo of Audaz Capital is a Mountain Lion. He chose the mountain lion because mountain lions hunt alone compared to African lions that hunt in a pack. The mountain lion sits high above, studying the activity in the valley, then they go down to hunt with purpose.
Audaz has already invested in 7 companies. Four of them have direct ties to El Paso. The founders are all from El Paso and they might not live here full time but they’re building the companies here. One of the companies is called Finhabits. It is a fintech company, financial technology company. The founder is from Juarez. He went to high school here in El Paso and went on to MIT. After graduation, he went to work in New York and built several startups. He is impacting how Latinos save for retirement because they don’t do that. “I met him nine years ago and I invested in the company seven years ago. His name is Carlos Garcia. 95% of his employees are here and in Juarez. He lives in New York and comes back every month. His company has over 100,000 clients on his platform saving for retirement. I have walked the streets of New York with Carlos Garcia and construction workers waved, would come down and say hi and shake his hand ,because; they said. ‘I use your platform’. These are people who before had no idea how to save for retirement. He is a guest every Tuesday on Univision and Telemundo. He is an expert and knows what he’s doing. He is changing the way Latinos save for retirement. The average American has $75,000 by the time they retire. About 25% of Latinos have $10,000 saved up for retirement. He also sells insurance. I love that he’s building his company here and that his call center is here.” Beto said proudly.
Marla Sofas is another client. Her company, Knomee, is another fintech company for women to learn how to invest. She was featured in a previous edition of City Beat.
AIZENFLO is another company that came out of a hack-a-thon. The team came together and built a cross-border logistics platform for the trucking industry. Microsoft has published an article about them. AIZEN was given Azure cloud storage, the Microsoft product, for their innovation in the logistics arena.
Another company is out of California. Beto got an email from Samsung stating that a young student he had met at a presentation in Stanford was working on something and needed investment money. Beto talked with him. His innovation was a platform for restaurants. He became an Uber driver in Menlo Park and would pitch his rides about the platform, improving his pitch every time. He reached 1 million dollars in investments after his first $18,000 investment from one of his Uber customers. The young man had hired someone in London to help make improvements. Beto and other investors helped him grow his business. He reduced the restaurants’ cost by 7% by going to Uber Eats and Door Dash to batch their business. He has most of Hispanic restaurants as clients, helping them, even with website design. Having owned a restaurant, Thyme Matters in the past, Alejandra Chavez, District 1 City Rep, has become an advisor for the young man’s company.
“These are the kinds of companies we help. We focus on tech companies. They are small businesses that require high dollar investments.’ Beto stated.
Beto explained the importance of education. Even in medieval times the purpose of universities was to perpetuate the culture, literature, thought, etc. “You will always have an education to fall back on should something not work out,” he said.
Are you a tech company needing advice? Go to https://audaz.capital.