Jesse Martinez

Jesse is a serial tech entrepreneur, educator, philanthropist, investor, advisor, mentor, and a passionate evangelist for the global Latinx tech community. He was recently honored to attend the World Economic Forum 2020 in Davos as a delegate for the 1st U.S. Hispanic Delegation led by the We Are All Human Foundation. He is also a co-author - Hispanic Stars Rising published in 2020. He has spent 25 years in San Francisco/Silicon Valley and is originally from Houston, Texas along with being a proud Texas A&M Aggie. Jesse found his way to San Francisco in March 1997 where he first experienced what it meant to work for a startup. As employee 27, he got to see firsthand the building of a Silicon Valley company (funded by Sequoia Capital) that ultimately grew into a thousand employee corporation all in less than a year as it was acquired for $180 million by Frontier Communications. As a serial entrepreneur, Jesse was the cofounder of Picosito.com (Bilingual Latino portal pioneer), Giggo (Spanish only Groupon-like pioneer), Media Relevance (Contextual media advertising for video), and Founder of CareerForce (Workforce development for the Salesforce economy) where he was incubated at the Salesforce Incubator (Now Accelerate) and was their first Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR). In 1999, Jesse was honored with a U.S. Congressional Record by the House of Representatives for their work around Picosito.com He has also been a participant in four accelerators such as Hackers/Founders Co-op, SAP HANA Startup Focus Program, Momentum and Startup Brasil (first international cohort). He is the Founder of Latinx Startup Alliance (LSA, 2011) whose mission is to empower Latino tech founders and has grown organically to over 1K+ members globally. He has been honored with multiple visits to the White House (Tech Inclusion), two visits to the Clinton Global Initiative , two visits to the United Nations (NYC 2019), and co-chaired a delegation of twelve Latinos in Tech to Israel (Startup Nation). Through his LSA work, Jesse has appeared on LatiNation, Top 20 Latino Tech Leaders, Nissan Latino, NASDAQ TradeTalks, Hispanicize, including many tech conference panels and articles. In 2016, LSA fostered a strategic partnership with Republic (Equity crowdfunding) and coleads the LSA Republic Community of 500+ member investors. Recently, he has been a capital advisor for multiple cohorts for the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative. He was also the cofounder of Avion – the first pre-accelerator supporting Latina tech founders. Jesse is a startup advisor to Trez, Opt Health, Avenida, madeBOS, Gritly, & Bedrock Analytics, LaDaDa (exit), and honored to mentor many. He was also an advisor to Hackers/Founders Co-op, the SXSW 2016 & 2018 Pitch Accelerator, a UN Delegate for Blockchain for Impact, and a TechCrunch’s 9th & 10th Annual Crunchies Board Member. Jesse is a Founding Investment Partner at Resolved Ventures focused on diversity allocations for pre-IPO companies and a new generation of diverse LPs on cap tables. He is also a venture partner at VamosVentures, a $50M fund focused on U.S. Latino-led and diverse founder startups; a member of Top Latinx Tech Leaders; co-founder for the Titan Institute; and most recently, honored to become the Southwest Region President for HLX+. Jesse, is the Founder + CEO of LSA Global, a social impact non-profit creating, developing, inspiring, championing, and supporting the Latinx tech ecosystem. He is proud to be back in his hometown working on establishing their new strategic HQ for Latinx Startup Alliance at The Ion to support Latinx tech founders and the tech ecosystem in Houston along with the State of Texas. He is also on the Plaza Tec (The Ion) Advisory Board. Jesse grew up in the neighborhood of Northside Houston, attended HISD schools graduating from Sam Houston High School with a certificate in Vocational Drafting, and is excited to recently join the board of the Northside Greater Chamber of Commerce as a way to champion his community