Hello Alice President Talks DEI Lawsuit

Published Apr 8, 2024, 4:16 PM

Hello Alice Co-founder and President, Elizabeth Gore talks, to Bloomberg Technology host Caroline Hyde on the company's pending DEI lawsuits  

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Hello Alice as a fintech startup offering grants, networking opportunities, and access to finance for entrepreneurs from underrepresented groups.

In particular.

It's just announced a new Series C funding round in our values the company at one hundred and thirty million dollars.

Now.

This is despite being on the front lines of a litigation war over diversity in corporate America. Six months ago, it was hit with a lawsuit far by the conservative activist group America First Legal, which has lodged at least six other DEI related suits elsewhere. It claims a grant program by Hello Alice co runs for black owned small businesses is discriminatory.

Now, the startup has had.

To spend six figures on fees for three law firms so far, and we're going to dive into this ongoing legal battle and indeed, well the ultimate growth of the business too. Hello Alice co founder and president Elizabeth Gore is here with us. And this comes at a time where the DEI discussion pendulum has swung significantly and there's this view that people giving and allocating grants to people of color is in some way discriminating against white founders. Now, how has that been a distruction for the business? Rochavi hasn't been a galvanizing force, you.

Know, I will just open with it's been a galminizing force. We just hit one point five million small businesses on the platform and we serve everyone at Hellollis and with the five and a half million small businesses that are launching right now in this country, it is a great time to be in fintech.

We think, and we provide credit.

And loans, grants and we've done forty million in philanthropy and grants and we're very proud that those have gone to women, people of color, US veterans, and white males. But we're capitalists at the end of the day. We want to make sure everyone are included in the small business ecosystem.

It's critical.

How's any of your use a base. Any prospective clients ever brought this up and I said, look, the fact that you're giving grants to minorities, I feel discriminating.

No.

In fact, when we announced that we were being sued, we've had hundreds of thousands of letters of support, emails, people coming out. We're based in Houston, Texas and We've got our vets coming out in support of African Americans.

We have women coming out in support of men.

The small business community, particularly after COVID has really galvanized, they're growing now. Capital is tight right now, I will give everyone that, but they're really a savvy community that they have to have each other. If you look at Main Street, all those shops are working together to scale everything we need in this country. So that support is there from everyone. We have never heard a complain about it ever.

And so when you're fundraising out there looking for a series C, how much you're having to talk to potential investors about the use of the money for a.

Business case or indeed for a legal case.

Is any point not having to be commingled?

Well, sure, I mean there was a lot of time when the case first came out there was concern about the quote legitimacy of our business. And I'm here to say that we are now one of the fastest platforms for financial technology, offering credit and loans to small businesses. We're about to be profitable, which is really exciting for a fintech. But you have to disclose lawsuits a lawsuit and that's why we are think that these are very distracting. We think they're a waste of money. Everything we've done is perfectly legal, and we want to make money for our investors. We want to make money for our small business owners.

And I'm really.

Happy to say despite all this, we have significantly grown.

It took investors a minute to step back be like, WHOA, what is this? What is this going to impact me?

And they're capitalists at the end of the day, and our business is growing, we are making money, our small businesses are so no matter what, they came back in and funded us and we.

Disclosed our Series C. So we're pretty stoked.

So you remain committed to the phenanthropic and devats on the rons absolutely. What do you make me to two?

In terms of your own technology? What are you doing and building narrative?

Well, what's really exciting is the evolution of AI. My co founder Cohen Rodds has really been on the forefront of that for a decade and now that it is getting i would say cheaper to access great data, it allows us with our we have a proprietary business Health score that score small businesses financial health from zero to one hundred and gets them ready for that next step of funding so that Business Health Score is now being used not just by us, but everyone from Wells Fargo to Chase. So it's a great time for our business and we're continuing to say that we are here for small business.

We're going nowhere, come back. I'd love the legal dispute continues. We thank her for her time.

Hello Alice. Co founder, president Elizabeth Cole

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