In 2013, Irma Olguin Jr. -- a third-generation Mexican American and the first in her family to go to college -- was working on making coding instruction available to disadvantaged members of her community. During her work, she met Jake Soberal, an intellectual property lawyer, who shared Olguin's desire to leverage the tech industry to effect change at the local level.

Olguin and Soberal started by co-founding Geekwise Academy, a coding and tech skills bootcamp that teaches HTML and JavaScript. Then -- to boost the hiring pipeline for Geekwise graduates, and under a newly formed parent company called Bitwise Industries -- they launched Shift3 Technologies, a software development house that creates managed services for Salesforce, DocuSign and various other software-as-a-service apps.

As Fast Company notes, Bitwise made headlines in 2019 when it raised $27 million -- one of the largest Series A rounds ever secured by a company with a female Latinx founder. Historically, female founders have received just 12% of venture capital investment for their businesses.

Olguin and Soberal's latest venture through Bitwise is commercial real estate -- the two develop and turn previously blighted buildings into coworking spaces, restaurants, theaters and more. Evidently impressed with the three-pronged business model, investors — including Kapor Center, Motley Fool, the Growth Equity business within Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Citibank — poured $80 million into Bitwise this week, bringing the company's total capita raised to over $200 million.

The new cash will be used to support Bitwise's expansion into Chicago and the growth of the startup's other locations, Olguin told TechCrunch in an email interview. She and Soberal plan to eventually bring Bitwise's businesses into 40 cities nationwide.

"Bitwise Industries' approach has delivered business value in the form of digital transformation nationwide resulting in unprecedented company growth despite global economic instability," Olguin said. "This latest raise, led by a group of distinguished investors, acknowledges the role technology plays in driving economic impact in previously underserved communities, and validates our model making it possible for us to roll out our proven approach into other parts of the country."