Seeing opportunity in the Hispanic market, the founders of the Sarasota-based Web managment firm Merging Point Design, Pedro and Roseanne Pérez, have a new startup: Nuevo Punto ( New Point) Advertising Group.

The new company is a full-service advertising and marketing firm aimed at helping companies reach the largest minority group in the nation - Hispanics.

As of the 200 Census, 16% of Florida's residents were of Hisoanic or Latino origin. In the Sarasota-Bradenton area, the Hispanic market grew from 6,174, or 1.76% of the totalpopulation, in 1980 to 38,682, or 6.56%, in 2000. There was a more than 500% increase in total population.

The Perezes have enlisted the help of Marjorie Floyd, Owner of Strategic Marketing Resources, and Dan Miller of Startup Florida. Merging Point Design will now operate as a service under Nuevo Punto.

"Our plan is to start local and then to take the compnay statewide, then netional and then internationally." Pedro Pérezsays. "we hope to reach the international level in three years. What is really driving this is Hispanic buying power. By 2010, Hispanic purchaseing power is expected to reach $1.2 trillion."

Pérez says one of the advenatages his company has over other bilingual marketing agencies is the achnowledgement that Hispanic market is extremely diverse. The new company includes personnel from Colombia, Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico and Puerto Rico