Increasing the flow of credit to immigrant small business owners

Gabriela Campoverde wants to help immigrant small business owners deploy more capital and improve the efficiency of the process. And, she believes, if your first attempt fails, keep trying.

When her first attempt—to become a lender—failed, she switched gears. Specifically, she founded an enterprise called Miren, a platform aimed at helping banks invest in low- and middle-income communities, track investments, and ultimately increase cash flow for small businesses.

With experience in financial services, Campaverde has worked in marketing, project management and cyber security at American Express and Goldman Sachs. But she had a long-standing interest in fintech and, moreover, was frustrated by what she saw as a lack of products for working-class immigrant communities.

Then, in 2020, while attending the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Campoverde learned about the gap in access to financing for small business owners, particularly Latinos. And isolated with her family at home in Queens, she saw just how hard the epidemic had taken on many in her community.

With that in mind, when she was still in school, she went door-to-door, talking to Latino immigrant small business owners about their financial situation and how they got startup capital. Through those interviews, she gained a better understanding of how those small businesses were able to access capital at affordable prices and the lack of resources available to them.

Idea and pole

That sparked an idea for a business: an organization that would lend to small Latino companies using criteria different from standard data to assess enterprise loan eligibility. It also educates borrowers on topics such as how to prepare and apply for loans. But, she says, “We were unsuccessful in trying to raise equity capital for the idea.” That’s mostly because capital providers feel these are risky ventures and insist on pricing them for that risk.

So, Campaverde began talking to microlenders and others who provide loans to small and risky businesses, tapping into the money provided by large financial institutions. Under the Community Reinvestment Act, banks are required to invest in low- and moderate-income communities. It is definitely not profitable as it takes a lot of time to provide those loans. Therefore, banks usually work in these communities as microlenders.

But she found that many lenders have inefficient systems, sometimes still using manual data entry, multiple Excel sheets or multiple disparate systems, cutting and pasting information from one program to another. “Things can easily fall apart,” says Campaverde.

She realized that perhaps a better approach would be to develop software that improves the efficiency of these institutions, ultimately helping them serve more customers and deploy more capital. So Campaverde created loan origination and servicing software aimed at microlenders, helping them evaluate applications and monitor their loans. That can also free up time, so lenders can spend more time providing technical support to small business owners. A pilot is underway with two institutions this past fall.

Now Campaverde and technical lead Luke Fraker are developing another product that allows financial institutions to monitor CRA investments and compile comprehensive data. Microlenders and others who receive money from banks are required to report on changes such as the number of jobs created or changes in a company’s revenue. But they send all that information to the banks using the same system they employ internally. That means it can be a time-consuming struggle to integrate all the information they need. The new product simplifies the process and provides a more efficient and faster way to summarize the data.

Campaverde has raised around $250,000 from competitions, most of it from its recently completed AWS Impact Accelerator. She plans to breed next year.