Negocios Now

www.negociosnow.com Febrero 2022 7 By Tara García Mathewson C OVID-19 had already caused months of panic throughout the Unit- ed States when Isabel Rafferty had to decide whether to push forward with her latest busi- ness idea. She needed consis- tent advertising at a time when companies were pausing these expenses, unsure how long lock- downs would continue and dis- rupt Americans' buying habits. But Rafferty took the leap. She had been working for a little over a year on an idea for a free streaming service tailored to Latino audiences. Nothing like it existed and she knew there was going to be demand. Thankfully, she had enough money and advertising to launch CanelaTV in May of 2020, because very quickly her sub- scriber base grew to help cor- ral the consistent advertising she needed, and the streaming service now ranks as the fourth largest digital media company in the U.S., after Adsmovil, which she built; Mobvious, her last startup; and Univision, where she worked out of college and honed her skills in digital media. "Latinos had exhausted the content available to them," Rafferty said of May 2020. "We launched when they needed us the most." The company, headquar- tered in New York City, now has 8 million subscribers and has expanded into Mexico and Colombia with plans to grow all over Latin America. CanelaTV features novelas, series that air throughout Latin America, mov- ies produced in Spanish as well as those dubbed in the language, kids programming, and original newscasts. Other original pro- grams are also in the works, including a talk show with Nicky Jam and a cooking show called Con Sazón, where a chef invites celebrities to come cook their favorite meals with him. Viewers can access all of the shows for free, on demand, and advertising breaks cover the cost of the content. The pandemic has been a particularly fast-moving time for Rafferty, whose whole career has rocketed forward one major achievement after another. She distinguished herself at Univi- sion by working long hours and becoming an early expert in digital media when the San Diego station was just dipping its toe into digital advertising. Her work first got her recognized by Impremedia, a publishing group, and then Grupo Cisneros, which owns Univision and hired her to launch the company's first mobile ad network, Adsmovil. She built it from nothing, open- ing offices all over the United States in four years and lighting within her a new fire. "That's when I got hooked on entrepreneurship," Rafferty said. She launched Mobvious in 2016 and quickly caught the eye of the Spain-based global media group Prisa, which acquired the com- pany one year later. After staying on to grow the company, she set her sights on Canela and her next challenge. For Canela Media, Rafferty needed investment. She had never raised venture capital and found herself having a hard time convincing investors of the importance of the Latino market. And then, while scrolling through LinkedIn one day, she came across an article in NegociosNow. It featured Chicago-based Ade- la Cepeda and her latest effort to support Latino businesses nationwide: Angeles Investors. Cepeda was on the search for the next "Google," built by Latinos. SEARCHING FOR EARLY INVESTMENT, CANELA MEDIA, A DIGITAL MEDIA COMPANY BASED IN NEW YORK CITY, FOUND ITS WAY TO ANGELES INVESTORS BECAUSE OF AN ARTICLE IN NEGOCIOSNOW. CanelaTV's explosive growth got an early boost from NegociosNow El Especial | Latino Investors

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