Nonprofit seeks R$100m to back LGBTI+ businesses
Willian Mallmann
Rogerio Vieira/Valor
About 3.7 million LGBTQIA+ people run their own businesses in Brazil, according to social-impact organization Todxs. The survey includes lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex people. The organization plans to expand its support for businesses led by LGBTI+ people and aims to mobilize R$100 million by 2030. Of that amount, 80% is expected to come from philanthropy and the remaining 20% from corporate partnerships.
By 2030, Todxs aims to train more than 40,000 LGBTI+ people across Brazil and support approximately 1,500 businesses.
The organization chooses to use the acronym LGBTI+—lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and others—because it is also adopted by global institutions such as the United Nations (UN) and the World Health Organization (WHO). Other designations are also used. Brazil’s Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship, for example, uses LGBTQIA+.
The Todxs initiative is beginning with R$5 million secured through donations and partnerships, according to founder Willian Mallmann. The nonprofit was created in 2016 to support the community. Some of the funds will support a program for businesses in low-income areas of São Paulo and Recife, offering seed capital—funding for early-stage companies. Under the Todxs model, the money is a nonrepayable grant released in installments after recipients account for each stage of their business.
Small early-stage businesses will receive up to R$10,000 each. Many are still registered as Individual Microentrepreneurs (MEIs). The goal is to help structure these companies and prepare them to obtain loans and larger investments.
The program grew out of Todxs’s experience. The organization tested more than 16 programs and different forms of support for the LGBTI+ population. The pandemic accelerated this shift, prompting Todxs to incubate businesses, provide capital, and create a fund for transgender people.
“The past 10 years have been our laboratory. Developing leaders is essential, but it is not enough unless it is accompanied by economic opportunity,” the founder said. Mallmann said funding would reach entrepreneurs through a combination of financing instruments.
Todxs seed capital will be the entry point, but the organization wants to create a path that allows businesses to attract other sources of funding as they mature. It is discussing subsidized-interest loans with private partners and seeking private investors such as family offices, which manage the wealth of high-income families, and impact funds, which invest in businesses or projects with social or environmental objectives.
“These businesses emerge out of necessity. Many still lack healthy cash flow, management processes, or even a business plan,” Mallmann said.
Difficulty accessing capital was among the main obstacles the organization identified in its 10th-anniversary report. In the survey, 60% of the entrepreneurs interviewed said they had never received outside investment. Among the 42% who had obtained some form of capital, 57.6% said their businesses had become more stable.
The organization will select businesses based on three factors: the profile of the company’s leaders, the maturity of the business, and the entrepreneurs’ socioeconomic circumstances. At least one founder must be LGBTI+. The organization has also set targets for 50% of beneficiaries to be Black, 30% to be located in Brazil’s North or Northeast, and 20% to be women. The organization will monitor business development using indicators such as revenue, stability, job creation, and income.
The problem the organization is seeking to address also has a broader economic dimension. A World Bank study of 11,231 LGBTI+ adults in Brazil, interviewed between June and September 2025, estimates that excluding this population from the country’s labor market results in an annual loss of R$94.4 billion in labor income, equivalent to 0.8% of GDP.
Todxs is making the investment as it seeks to diversify its own revenue sources. According to Mallmann, the organization lost approximately 70% of its corporate funding in 2024 amid project cancellations and a contraction in the diversity, equity, and inclusion consulting market. It decided to draw on reserves accumulated in previous years and pause fundraising in 2025 to evaluate the results of its first decade.
Over 10 years, Todxs invested R$524,000 in 191 businesses and developed projects with more than 80 companies, according to the founder.
Translation: Todd Harkin
