100rising is a cohort of 100 talented and innovative Latinx startup leaders curated by Inicio Ventures, an early-stage impact investment fund that backs US-based Latinx founders across markets and twenty different industries. Annually the publication identifies inspiring US-based Latinx founders who are making a significant impact via their life stories, leadership, accomplishments, and startup vision. In order to be a part of this exclusive list, the founders who apply must Identify as Latinx/Hispanic, be based in the US, and be a founder/co-founder of a current early stage startup that has raised less than $1M in capital.

Last week, Inicio Ventures shared its list of 2022 founders. Two of Santa Cruz Works Accelerates startup founders made it to 100rising Latinx founder’s watch list: Daniel Hernandez of Fonda and Francisco Rojas of ecPunch. Fonda is positioning itself to become an all-in-one virtual partner to help Latino & minority-owned restaurants with the complexities of managing and growing their online business. ecPunch helps agriculture, healthcare & general services field operations teams standardize their employee data through object recognition and artificial intelligence, providing full visibility of their performance. Read more about them below.

Daniel’s Story

From an early age, I considered myself an entrepreneur, from selling Mexican candy to my middle school classmates, or starting freelance marketing gigs for local restaurants while still in high school. In college, I started a courier service delivering food from local restaurants to my classmates and quickly grew the business to serve over 20k clients. After spending an entire year working with local restaurants and building an on-demand courier service, I discovered that restaurants didn't need another delivery service; they needed a partner to help with the complexities of managing and growing an online business. Ever since I can remember, I have always been the technology savvy son helping my mom who has a language barrier and struggles with technology. However, once I started interacting with more Latino restaurant owners, I learned that my mom wasn't the only one facing this problem. Therefore, I pivoted my courier business to support Latino & minority owned restaurants.

My mom who is an award-winning chef, makes the most amazing food I've ever had. However, her and her staff lack the proper in-house skills to manage an online business. What used to be a simple business model of serving customers great food has now turned into a complicated problem. The process involves creating menus optimized for online orders, managing multiple ordering channels, and dealing with the costly process of tracking down online sales.

Fonda offers real consolidation of third-party ordering channels, menu building, online business optimization, and revenue processing under one solution. One of the many benefits of Fonda is turning the online hassle into a single point of interaction for restaurant staff.

Francisco’s Story

As an immigrant I have been exposed to the process of creating opportunities to thrive- from working as a floor assistant to running an operation with more than $40MM in sales and now creating my own company. It is through these experiences that I believe technology will transform the way we conduct our lives- not only through learning platforms, functions or processes but also sharing, collaborating and interacting across different countries and cultures.

ecPunch was born after several years of experience implementing IT-based solutions in the US and LATAM where we identified that companies are heavily affected due to silos between their capital management platforms, operational mistakes, including overpayment and broken processes, manual data entry, as well as fraud, and middlemen.

We created a platform that allows any company to design its own operational process. This allows them to handle what is happening on the field every day, regardless of where people are located.

We also take a manual paper punch card and through our machine vision algorithms, we convert that punch card into digital payroll timesheets. Using our platform, business owners are able to manage the company and employees can easily keep their records, providing full traceability and transparency between stakeholders and accurate data for the decision-making process.

Our blockchain-powered platform allows not only secure transactions but also certifies worker experience to be used as a reference in our Workforce Marketplace.