HMTA is proud to announce that our most recent investment is in The Chela Media Group and its founder Brandon Loran Maxwell. Chela Media is an authentic, multi-platform media company focused on the large and growing Mexican-American community. We’ve made this investment alongside our friends at the Portland Seed Fund. Chela fits well with our decades long commitment to building quality media companies. Chela Media is becoming recognized as an important voice for the Mexican American community. Among the leading sites that currently link to Chela are: The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Fox News, Forbes; Vox, Mashable, NBC, and Yahoo News.
“I couldn’t be more excited to work with PSF and Peter Horan who, not only has years of expertise in the media space, but a proven track record of success.”—Brandon Maxwell.
Chela Media Group was one of the winners of the Bend Venture Conference’s early stage track and earned the PSF investment as a result.
We are excited about Chela both for what it is and what it isn’t. Many pundits have spoken about the large “hispanic” population the United States as if everyone from any North American, Central American, Caribbean, or South American country was a homogenous segment. They are not any more than it would be useful to talk about “Asian” media or “European” media. The people from each country have different interests and beliefs.
There was a core belief at International Data Group where Pam Horan and I worked for a decade that “the specific drives out the general”. Media targeting some hypothetical average of all hispanic consumers cannot be compelling. We believe that DailyChela is perfectly positioned to fill this void.
Mexican Americans are a huge segment in and of themselves. They represent 60% of that theoretical “hispanic” demographic–more than 37 million people–and 11% of the total US population.
Self-identified chicanos, who make up a large base of the Mexican American population, have a very strong culture of which they are justifiably proud. Chela’s content resonates with them.
We are also pleased that DailyChela is not “Spanish language” media. Most media companies have been disappointed by their “x in Espanol” efforts. Most of the readers of those Spanish language editions are outside of the US and advertisers are hard to come by.
Will people occasionally speak Spanish on the site? Sure. And that’s fine. But for many Mexican-Americans who have lived in the US for several generations, English is their primary language even as they hold onto their cultural heritage.
We look forward to working with Brandon and supporting DailyChela’s growth.