From Vision to Venture: How Local Capital Helped a Navajo Entrepreneur Scale
Wyatt Gilmore, CEO of Laguna Creek, LLC
Wyatt Gilmore is on a mission to change the way Native American tourism businesses connect with their customers — and thanks to a unique Local First Arizona investment fund, he’s turning that vision into reality.
At its core, Gilmore’s work is about developing cutting-edge software. But his innovation is built for a very specific purpose: to solve persistent pain points across the Native American tourism industry. And ultimately, he wants his business to serve as a success story for Native American-owned enterprises.
The Rooted Relative Fund, designed to support Native American business owners, is providing the financial fuel he didn’t even realize was available.
Developing an Edge
Gilmore grew up in Kayenta, a rural community in the heart of the Navajo Nation, not far from Monument Valley and just south of the Utah border. It’s an area defined by striking geological formations that attract hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.
Tourism is big business for the Navajo Nation — with nearly 1.9 million visitors to its tribal parks last year alone. Gilmore saw an opportunity to streamline those visits for both tourists and the businesses serving them.
In August 2021, he partnered with the owner of Dixie’s Lower Antelope Canyon Tours to launch Native American Tours, the first exclusively Native-owned reservation booking platform. The concept filled a gap in the market, and after ironing out early challenges, they began attracting new clients.
That’s when another opportunity — and a major challenge — presented itself.
“One potential client told us they loved the platform but didn’t want to add another software,” Gilmore said. “They wanted to consolidate.”
Many tribally owned corporations were juggling 10 to 20 different software systems across properties — one for hotel reservations, another for tours, others for retail, hospitality, property management and more. Training and reporting for each system was time-consuming and expensive.
Gilmore was inspired to create an integrated solution — one platform to manage it all. Realizing that vision meant buying out his partner and hiring additional software engineers. “Who are very expensive, by the way,” he said, referring to the new hires he needed. “I knew we could make it successful and expand and grow quickly. I knew we could be different.”
A Different Path to Growth
In April 2024, Gilmore founded Laguna Creek, LLC (named after a creek he splashed around in as a child on the reservation) and set about securing funding — a prospect presenting unique challenges for tribally-owned businesses such as his.
“Native American companies get overlooked when it comes to raising funds or getting business loans that rely heavily on collateral,” Gilmore said. “The assets associated with Laguna Creek are in the code,” he explained. “Our expenses are in development hours. A conventional loan, they might have looked at us and said ‘What do you have in collateral?’”
It was over lunch at a marketing conference in Las Vegas in spring 2025 that Gilmore learned about Local First Arizona’s Rooted Relative Fund — and realized it could be the breakthrough he needed. The Fund provided a $250,000 loan at just 3% interest — a rate and opportunity he couldn’t find anywhere else.
“We wouldn’t have been able to find a bank that would loan us $250,000 at 3%. That’s amazing in itself.”
Without the Fund, he might have had to put his family home on the line. Instead, he could move forward on his terms — expanding his company to compete with some of the largest booking platforms in the market.
Investing in Progress
For Gilmore, the Rooted Relative Fund isn’t just growing his company — it’s expanding what that company can give back to the Navajo Nation.
“We’re fulfilling real needs for our clients and improving the experience for the people who visit their facilities,” he said. “And with the money we make, we’re going to spread it around to benefit our community — almost like a nonprofit would.”
Laguna Creek volunteers rebuilding roofs near Monument Valley earlier this summer
Earlier this summer, Laguna Creek completed its first community outreach project near Monument Valley, rebuilding roofs on five homes and handling other home improvements — from insulation to wheelchair ramps. Solar electricity for these homes is next on the list.
“We just made living easier for some families who couldn’t afford these repairs themselves,” Gilmore said.
As Laguna Creek grows, fueled by timely and sustainable investment, its impact on the community — and the tourism industry — will continue to expand.
“I want this company to be a success story for our people,” Gilmore said.
Related Resources:
Learn how the Rooted Relative Fund is helping Native American-owned businesses like Laguna Creek grow and give back.
Learn more about Laguna Creek, LLC.