Initialized, a standalone San Francisco-based early-stage venture capital firm that now has $3.2 billion in assets under management and more than 200 active companies in the portfolio, has announced Abdul Ly as its fourth principal. In a post made on the company’s official website, it was revealed that the United States-born, Senegal-raised Ly is the third principal to join the team through their open search process. “At Initialized, we don’t evaluate founders based on education level or work credentials,” wrote the company in its official announcement. “Instead, we are more interested in their lived experience and the product they are building. [Abdul Ly]’s philosophy about how he meets founders complements that of our investment team. He is most eager to learn about the distance a founder has traveled and the steps they took to get to where they are today.” According to a blog post, prior to his work at Initialized, Abdul Ly had a background at such companies as Google. He was...

From entrepreneurs and small minority-owned businesses to Black and brown communities, low-income and financially-excluded individuals in America deal with many social and economic disadvantages that make it difficult to seek out loans. According to Forbes , minority-owned firms are much less likely to be approved for small business loans than white-owned firms, which speaks volumes considering minority-owned establishments lead a significant portion of the nation’s businesses. A 2017 report from the FDIC stated that 6.5 percent of U.S. households were unbanked and 18.7 percent were underbanked. Of those unbanked households, more than half cited not having enough money to keep in an account. In an effort to solve these issues, Kiva and SoLo Funds have partnered together to offer these populations of people affordable loan products for personal and business lending. Both companies have supported thousands of Americans through their communities of lenders, according to Kiva’s blog ,...

One of the biggest challenges most aspiring business owners face is finding the capital needed to launch. If you’re starting a business, one financing option you might want to think twice about is tapping into your home equity. There are a variety of ways homeowners may use home equity to start a business: A home equity loan provides a fixed amount of money from a loan that is secured by your home. You typically repay the loan in equal monthly installments over a fixed term, similar to a traditional mortgage. A home equity line of credit (HELOC) provides a line of credit that you can draw from as needed over a fixed period. You only make payments on the outstanding amount at any time. Cash-out refinancing replaces your existing mortgage with a new loan at a higher amount. You receive the difference in cash that can be used for any purpose. A HELOC isn’t a particularly popular way to fund a small business. According to a report from the Federal Reserve, just seven percent of all...