Meet Ponte Labor, a startup matching Hispanic immigrants to jobs using WhatsApp

Summary

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 efficien...