This year, the Latino Business Action Network (LBAN) graduates its 13th cohort of business owners in their business training program, the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative Education-Scaling Program (SLEI-Ed), a joint program run with the titular Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

The graduating cohort of entrepreneurs, tech-startup owners, CEOs, and founders are leaders from across the country and Puerto Rico whose combined revenue totals $1.5 billion.

For a business leader to qualify for the SLEI-Ed program, their company must either have $1 million in annual gross revenue, or have raised $500,000 in external investment. SLEI-Ed brought them together as they sought to improve their company’s growth and profitability.

The SLEI-Ed program is dedicated to teaching and uplifting Latino and Latina entrepreneurs. During the length of the initiative, Stanford faculty and subject matter experts teach them to scale their growing business and cultivate corporate vision.

Alongside training, the cohort members will be granted exclusive networking opportunities, mentorship opportunities, connections to capital providers, pitch sessions to investors, and after-program support.

"LBAN has a strong track record of scaling businesses that participate in our program at Stanford,” said Arturo Cazares, LBAN CEO in a statement. "The Latina and Latino-owned businesses that we convene at Stanford demonstrated 22% growth in the last 2 years vs 12% for comparable companies not in the program.

“Given that Cohort 13 represents a combined $1.5 billion in gross revenue, it’s fair to say that when these businesses use their new found skills to scale further, together with LBAN’s current alumni network, our participants will be poised to make a huge impact on the U.S. economy,” he continued.

Their 13th cohort will join a network of nearly 1,000 alumni nationwide, with after-program support that seeks to help them connect, share in resources, engage with investment opportunities, and continue learning from each other.