While working on their MBAs at Harvard Business School, Colombian immigrants Stephanie Murra and Lorenza Vélez noticed that most of the workers in the cafeteria were Hispanic. In conversations with them, a common theme kept coming up: how difficult it was for people who legally moved to the U.S. from Spanish-speaking countries to find their first jobs in the United States. Not speaking English well or at all, unsurprisingly, was the biggest challenge. 

“But then we’re looking at the news and seeing that the U.S. is actually facing an unprecedented labor shortage, especially for these types of positions where you would usually see low-skilled immigrant workers,” Murra told TechCrunch in an interview. “So we were like, ‘Ok, there’s definitely an issue here.’”

The roommates began doing research and realized that many potential employers would use traditional job boards like Indeed, which is “not meant for Hispanic immigrants,” Murra said.

“These workers, many of whom don’t speak English and are not really good with technology, are used to finding jobs through friends,” she explained. Further, they are often confused by online applications and get intimidated by the idea of someone interviewing them in English.

The idea for Ponte Labor was born. The duo — who had previously worked together for two years at Colombian fintech Addi — founded the Miami-based company in April 2023, during their final semester at Harvard. 

“Employers in hospitality, construction, retail, and other blue-collar industries really struggle to fill hourly roles while millions of work-authorized Hispanic immigrants struggle to find stable jobs due to language and cultural barriers,” said Vélez. 

“We know where to find the workers, speak their language and communicate with them via their preferred channel, WhatsApp. So we built Ponte to bridge this gap,” Vélez added.

The founders claim that their hiring platform pre-vets, matches, and onboards legally authorized hourly workers “faster and more efficiently than traditional methods.” 

Workers are hired directly by employers rather than through staffing agencies, which they say not only saves employers money, but gives them a larger pool of potential employees to choose from. On the flip side, “workers gain access to incredible job opportunities that are difficult for them to access otherwise,” Vélez added.

Ponte only works with documented immigrants: every candidate is pre-vetted for legal work authorization before reaching an employer. 

The startup has built an in-house AI recruiter which pre-vets candidates through WhatsApp and voice-based AI interviews. For now, it is only focused on the hospitality industry but plans to expand into other sectors such as construction or elder care in the future.

Fast growth

Ponte has been steadily growing since Murra and Vélez formally launched the platform in November 2023, onboarding over 60,000 candidates and placing nearly 800 workers in hospitality roles. Its annualized net revenue has grown from $70,000 in February of 2024 to $550,000 today. It is not yet profitable, but the pair say they operate with high contribution margins, so their model is more scalable. To date, they say they’ve burned less than $1 million.

Today, Ponte is working with 14 employers using its platform to hire workers, like Omni Hotels & Resorts, as well as large hotel management companies such as Pyramid Global, Peachtree Hotel Group, and Atrium Hospitality. 

The startup recently raised a $3 million seed round led by Harlem Capital at a $15 million valuation, it told TechCrunch exclusively. Better Tomorrow Ventures, The 81 Collection, and Wischoff Ventures also participated in the financing. Ponte previously raised another $1.5 million combined from Better Tomorrow Ventures’ The Mint accelerator, NFX’s FAST Competition and The 81 Collection.

The company’s revenue model is success-based. Ponte charges a monthly fee equivalent to 10% of a worker’s monthly salary for up to 12 months. Because it’s a high turnover industry, if the worker leaves within the first month, the hotel pays nothing. 

Presently, the startup has 15 full-time employees.

Because Ponte’s social media and recruiting channels are in Spanish, over 95% of its candidates are Hispanic immigrants, noted Murra. Besides using WhatsApp, it also places ads on Facebook and Instagram.

“That focus has helped us build deep trust with the community and tailor our approach to their specific needs,” she said. “But we’re building tools that are language-agnostic and could easily be adapted to serve other immigrant communities, including Portuguese-speaking Brazilians, in the future.”

And, she added, the startup has even supported native English speakers who found Ponte, which was named after the word in Portuguese meaning “bridge.”

Looking ahead, the founders say Ponte’s goal is to “create a place to help Hispanic immigrants in the U.S. achieve their professional goals.”

“So that’s not just helping them find an entry level job. We also want to help them grow within those jobs,” Vélez  said. “We see one of the biggest opportunities in helping the candidates learn English, because that’s where they get stuck between where they are right now and getting a promotion for their next job.”

Henri Pierre-Jacques, managing partner of Harlem Capital, said he’d been tracking the founders from Ponte’s pre-seed days.

“I loved that Lorenza and Stephanie were former colleagues at Addi…and then roommates at HBS together before starting Ponte,” he told TechCrunch. “We received very positive references from customers who raved about their product. They have managed to see strong traction in little time. It was obvious that Stephanie and Lorenza could do a lot with very little.”

Pierre-Jacques also believes that Ponte’s focus on Hispanic hospitality workers is “a huge differentiator.”

Indeed, Hispanics accounted for nearly one-half, or 47.6%, of the foreign-born labor force in 2023 in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

“With talent marketplaces we are always thinking about how our founders manage the supply side,” he said. “We have seen the power of WhatsApp within this community and Stephanie and Lorenza understood integrating the recruiting workflow through WhatsApp was the best channel to find their workers.”