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Just when Beatrice Acevedo thinks she’s out, Suma brings her in with an opportunity to start a fortune.
The California-based company, which presented at TechCrunch Disruption as part of Battlefield 200, is designed for Latinos and provides culturally-focused financial content, products and experiences to help them harness their economic power and build wealth.
“The ‘secret sauce’ is culture, not language,” Acevedo told TechCrunch.
Suma Wealth is at the intersection of EdTech and FinTech and is innovating on Blockchain. Some of the features include Sumaversity, with classes and boot camps on finance. It is using blockchain to provide authentication to everyone through learning and attendance authentication. Users collect non-transferable tokens (NTT) and get benefits.
There is also Music Money Plaza where users can understand the concept of credit and build it. Credit Cocina, the on-the-go food truck, helps consumers stay on track with their favorite recipes. Acevedo said there is a financial gym where consumers can “sweat their debt” by talking to a debt professional. Users can choose an avatar, chat or turn on their camera and train “non-threateningly”.
The app is free to download, and some of the premium features have a subscription level for the trainer.
Beatriz Acevedo, founder and CEO of Suma Wealth. Image Credits: Suma wealth
Acevedo is not your typical early stage entrepreneur. Now in her 50s, she began her career as a radio and television host and went on to start a company with her husband, Doug Greif, called Mitu, a digital media brand for young Latinos in the US between 2012 and 2020. Acevedo and Greiff received $52 million in funding before selling the company to Latido Networks.
Her plan was to transition entirely to philanthropy and work on her family’s foundation, but Acevedo told TechCrunch that during the global pandemic, she saw that Latinos were not only the hardest hit in terms of Covid deaths, but also the economic hardships.
She hadn’t set out to found a company that would solve that problem, but after talking to financial institutions that constantly told her they were challenged in their ability to connect with young Latinos, Suma decided to start Wealth with Mary Hernandez. Javier Gutierrez.
“Latinos are always considered no matter how much money they spend,” Acevedo said. “Fintechs can tell me that they’ve already translated their website, and that was the biggest red flag for me, because they didn’t need to do that, because their audience speaks English.”
When she tells them this, she explains, their immediate reaction is one of surprise and then relief, saying, “Then we’re reaching them in the general market.” To which she replies, “Maybe you’re reaching them, but you’re not touching them.”
“They still don’t feel like they’re in this financial conversation,” Acevedo added. “There’s a big connection there.”
The company is working with major financial institutions including JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley. It has also raised $3.3 million over the past two years. Acevedo told TechCrunch that Suma Wealth has already started raising funding for its seed round and is ramping up its venture offering.
The first enterprise partnership is with Verizon Wireless, which Suma said will offer its customers a wealth of benefits. Verizon also sponsors Suma’s Jefa Money Bootcamp for Latina entrepreneurs. After completing the bootcamp, entrepreneurs can earn an annual wealth-building membership. The company is in talks with other consumer goods companies.
“We are very happy to have all these partnerships,” Acevedo said. “We thought we were going to be B2C, but we’ve seen so much interest on the corporate side that we’re launching that model for employee benefits.”
Meanwhile, she believes Suma’s wealth is unraveling the relationship between content and character. And the traction the company has seen so far is proof: it has a community of 615,000 unique users and is growing at 27 percent per month.
In addition, it recently completed a VIP pilot with 2,000 users over a 90-day period and calculated a 72% growth in connected accounts – an average of 3.5 accounts – in the last 30 days, and customers returning 2.5 times per week. Acevedo was interesting, considering Suma’s wealth is in the early stages of content development.
So far, 800 people have completed the boot camp program and attend Sumaversity sessions for an average of 60 minutes. The company is also seeing a 96.3% click-through rate, a number Acevedo is proud of, explaining that 3 to 5% is a “good number” when it comes to clicks.
“This generation is asking for help,” she added. “The two main questions we get are, ‘Who do you trust?’ and ‘Who can we trust?’ Where we are in the economy today, not only Latinos, but Americans want to know how to protect their capital, and there’s never been a better time for us to be involved.
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