Source:https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2023\/06\/28\/hello-alice-global-entrepreneurship-network-70m-equitable-access-fund\/<\/a><\/br>
\nHello Alice, Global Entrepreneurship Network unveil $70M Equitable Access Fund<\/br>
\n2023-06-29 22:45:46<\/br><\/p>\n

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Hello Alice<\/a>, a fintech helping small businesses access capital, and entrepreneurship ecosystem Global Entrepreneurship Network <\/a>(GEN) created a $70 million Equitable Access Fund designed to bridge the financing gap experienced by women and BIPOC-owned founders.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s an estimated $40 billion gap among the BIPOC community alone,\u201d Elizabeth Gore, Hello Alice co-founder, told TechCrunch. \u201cAlso, the biggest gap we saw to growing businesses was lack of credit history.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also noted that many small business owners don\u2019t have the generational wealth or collateral to put up for loans. Some turn to credit; however, just 25% of small business owners have applied for a business credit card, and 85% of those applications were denied due to poor credit or lack of credit.<\/p>\n

The Equitable Access Fund will provide those credit enhancements, including guarantees, loan loss reserves and cash collateral deposits to financing partners. It will be deployed over the next five years with aims to improve equitable access to credit and unlock up to $1 billion in credit for small business owners in what Gore called the \u201cnew majority,\u201d which includes women, veterans, BIPOC, Latinx, those with disabilities, LGBTQIA+ and other groups.<\/p>\n

Initial capital commitments were led by Wells Fargo. Other partners in the program include First National Bank of Omaha, Mastercard and the Kauffman Foundation.<\/p>\n

The fund is part of the Equitable Access Program, run by Hello Alice and GEN, which provides increased credit access via a Mastercard secured card and financial education. As part of the program, Hello Alice also launched a business health score tool<\/a> in April that provides an overview of a business\u2019s financial health and recommendations on how owners can improve their performance.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Hello Alice serves 1.3 million small business owners, and its loan center has distributed just over $30 million in grants and continues to grow with 92 lenders, Gore said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the economic uncertainty, upheaval in banking and a lot of the fear that things are tightening and interest rates are changing, we\u2019re going to see that it\u2019s even harder for folks to get loans, particularly in the first 24 months of their business,\u201d Gore added. \u201cWe really rushed to get out the business health score, which was supposed to come out later, because it is absolutely critical that all business owners are managing their cash flow appropriately right now.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Science, Tech, Technology<\/br>
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\nSource:https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2023\/06\/28\/hello-alice-global-entrepreneurship-network-70m-equitable-access-fund\/<\/a><\/br><\/br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source:https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2023\/06\/28\/hello-alice-global-entrepreneurship-network-70m-equitable-access-fund\/ Hello Alice, Global Entrepreneurship Network unveil $70M Equitable Access Fund 2023-06-29 22:45:46 Hello Alice, a fintech helping small businesses access capital, and entrepreneurship ecosystem Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN) created a $70 million Equitable Access Fund designed to bridge the financing gap experienced by women and BIPOC-owned founders. \u201cThere\u2019s an estimated $40 billion gap among […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,17,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","category-tech","category-technology"],"yoast_head":"\n