Why is the venture-supported company supported by the family fund to persuade Latin American start-ups

On Tuesday, a group of founders and investors gathered in the creative studio of New York, a Land of New York, for routine passing rite in the Technical World: Demo Day. This event was distinguished by the fact that every early stage company came from Latin America. And even more atypical was that many of the projects competing for the ventures would use funding to move to Okla to Moven – a city that was not known as the starting point of start -up companies.

Michael Basch hopes to change it. Basch and his venture capital firm Atenento Capital may be familiar to readers of this newsletter that they are building Tulsa technology. Atento's only supporter, George Kaiser Family Foundation, has long won the initiative, reaching its Tulsa Remote Program, launched in 2018 and paid distant employees to move to Spear State. But the strategy is even more sophisticated over the past year. Atento cooperates with Hard Sciences start-ups in Latin America to help them find venture capital companies and set them up a $ 100,000 repositioning package with visa, office space and housing.

Basch stood aside for the demo day, watching the plots and nodding. When one of the founders of one company, a Startup named Monte Caldera in Mexico, said they were planning to take operations to the tulsa, basching basch and pumping a fist.

Of course, the leading motif of any risk company is the return. Atento's unique structure with the only limited partner, and the family foundation means that it may have another mission: to diversify the Tulsa economy. As it turned out, pursuing the Latin American side was the most effective vehicle to achieve the goal. Atento does not even take on equity participation for the relocation package.

“I would rather think about using charity stimuli to facilitate venture capital investments to change the city's landscape … and the faces of the founders of that city,” Basch tells me.

Basch itself is not an Oklahoman, nor is he a Latin American, although he married an Argentine and mostly lives in Argentina Córdoba College City. However, the focus of Atento on the area seemed to be given – its name means attentive in Spanish, and thanks to its investment team as the Spanish speakers of the Spanish language, the company has signed up in Latin -America and Spain.

Atento began collaborating with the Latin -American risk company and the start -up radiation called Gridx, which focuses on life sciences: the hot sector in the area due to the prevalence of research universities. Although not the Technology Center, Tulsa has a rich background to research and production, and Basch had the idea to bring Gridx start -ups to Oklahoma to help them collect seed capital from US investors who are unlikely to fly to Latin American American.

Moving to Oklahoma, full -time, turned out to be natural and symbiotic for start -ups and Atento. The first cohort, which came from last fall, with 11 companies, said Basch said eight have announced that they wanted to move to Tulsa.

The second cohabitation came to Tulsa, with two start -ups, including the Monte Caldera and Migma project of the Argentine project, which develops antioxidants.

“We are a startup, so we don't have millions to put everywhere – we have to think differently and be a strategic where our money becomes more exponential,” says Sofia Garcia Franco, Migma CEO and contributor to me. “In that sense, I think Oklahoma and Tulsa are a good opportunity because they develop the ecosystem.”

To put it simply, the Atento project in American politics is an uncomfortable situation. It was only a few months ago that X was rumbling over H1B of visas caused by Sriram Krishnan, an Indian trump card official and former A16Z partner, Sriram Krishnan, and with some drump acolytes, promoting all employees born, no matter how foreign workers, Legal product that is more than US immigration more than US immigration. Brutal Salvadran Prison. Oklahoma is one of the redest states of the country, with 66% of voters supported by Trump last year.

But Basch demands that this is the perfect time. “In a moment the word travelers are considered a bad thing,” he says to me, “I think all Americans can agree that we would be pleased that 1% of global scientists and 1% of American entrepreneurs live in America.

I rejected, pointing to Krishnan to the tear, but Basch claimed that the program should be common sense. “Because someone who likes to believe that America still wants the best talent on earth, and America is still a place where the words of the Statue of Liberty are important,” he says, “this program is the same close to something that so many people are behind the aisles.”

The founders, for their part, step on a tense moment without reservations. Hector Medina, CEO of Monte Caldera, said that uncertainty has a start -up experience. “It's part of the game,” he tells me.

And Basch is already planning to expand the program, looking for cooperation with governments such as Chile and Argentina to find new companies coming to Tulsa. “The foundation has had working things,” he tells me, pointing to the Tulsa remote program, which brought thousands of people after setting 10 after setting up the initial goal. “There is a lot of appetite.”

Leo Schwartz
X: @Lemschwartz
E -post: leo.schwartz@forma.com

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This story was originally reflected on Fortune.com