Hello Alice – a fintech platform connecting 1.5 million small businesses to capital, connections, and opportunities – announced the closing of a Series C funding round with QED Investors, Mastercard, and others. This funding round brought the company’s valuation to $130 million. Additional investors in this round of funding included Backstage Capital, Guy Fieri, Golden Seeds, Harbert Growth Partners Fund, How Women Invest I, LP, Lovell Limited Partnership, Tyler “Ninja” and Jessica Blevins, and Tamera Mowry and Adam Housley.
This funding round will continue to drive Hello Alice’s expansion of its capital offerings and AI-driven financial health tools for small businesses.
Hello Alice provides access to credit, loans, grants, and business planning services to small business owners, enterprise customers, and hundreds of business networks across the US. Headed by Elizabeth Gore, Carolyn Rodz, and Kelsey Ruger, Hello Alice is committed to equitable access to capital and supporting any entrepreneur with a good idea, especially those in the New Majority. And Hello Alice’s enterprise SaaS offering provides banks and business services engagement and data analytics tools that offer transactions to their SMB customers.
Hello Alice significantly expanded its community this year, supporting 1.5 million small business owners—one of the country’s largest SMB networks. Hello Alice recently broadened its suite of inclusive financial products and programs with the Hello Alice Small Business Mastercard, the Business Health Score, the Equitable Access Program, the $70 Million Equitable Access Fund, and Elevate the American Dream. And the first 14 grants under Elevate the American Dream have already been distributed this year to small businesses across the U.S., and Hello Alice will continue to award more grants over the next several weeks, putting their grant funding at more than $40 million.
This funding round will contribute to expanding the Hello Alice AI-driven financial health services and Small Business Funding Center. And this center connects owners with the funding they need to grow their small businesses and the company’s Equitable Access to Capital program, a commitment to ensure that all small businesses have access to the capital they need to cultivate sustainable enterprises that drive the national economy forward. And Hello Alice is utilizing AI to continue to lower barriers for every entrepreneur. From improving the relevance of recommendations for capital and connections to sharing best practices across the community, Hello Alice is focused on utilizing AI developments to enhance efficiencies and equity across the small business ecosystem.
KEY QUOTES:
“We are thrilled to hit the milestone of 1.5 million small businesses utilizing Hello Alice to elevate the American dream. There are more entrepreneurs launching this year than in the history of our country, and we will continue to ensure they get the capital needed to grow. In closing our Series C, we welcome Mastercard to our family of investors and continue to be grateful to QED, How Women Invest, and our advocates such as Guy Fieri.”
– Elizabeth Gore and Carolyn Rodz, co-founders of Hello Alice
“Our team focuses on finding and investing in companies that are obsessed with reducing friction and providing superior financial services solutions to their customers. Hello Alice has proven time and time again that they are on the leading edge of providing equitable access to capital and banking services to the small business ecosystem. We’re thrilled that they’re now serving 1.5 million small businesses and show no signs of slowing down.”
– QED Investors co-founder Frank Rotman
“With Hello Alice, we’re investing to provide support to small business owners as they look to access capital, helping to address one of the most cited business challenges they face. By working together to simplify access to the products and services they need when building and growing their business, we’re helping make a meaningful impact on the individuals who run their businesses, the customers they serve, and our communities and economy at large.”
– Ginger Siegel, Mastercard’s North America Small Business Lead
