It’s always a brighter day whenever women of color secure funding.

Project Entrepreneur, a UBS program, and Hello Alice, a platform helping small business owners, have recently added to the underrepresented group’s trail of success.

To play a part in helping to close the equity gap and promote access to capital for Black and LatinX female founders of color, Democratizing the Friends & Family Round program was announced in October 2021. According to a press release, kicking off the season of 2022 wins, the program has awarded $1 million in grants to 40 female founders.

The Program's Grants

After increasing the amount of selected women from 30 to 40, each founder was granted $25,000 to go toward their companies.

“It’s hard building a company from scratch. Any time you get that support of people who believe in you and want to contribute to that journey it makes a huge difference, and I am just so thankful,” said grant recipient Dr. Christine Izuakor, Founder & CEO of Cyber Pop-up.

And Dr. Izuakor’s application was just one out of 12,000 received, according to a press release.

“The sheer number of high-quality applications to our program highlights the inequality that female founders of color face and the financial support they need from investors to continue to grow their companies,” said Jamie Sears, Head of Community Impact & Corporate Responsibility, Americas at UBS. “We’ve seen first-hand through Project Entrepreneur the talent that exists in this community and are thrilled to have created this opportunity with Hello Alice to invest in the success of these remarkable women and their companies.”

Additional Support For WOC Founders

The awardees will now also have access to virtual coaching and other skill-building opportunities.

To make the celebration even better, the 12,000 applicants aren’t walking away empty-handed, courtesy of Hello Alice. They each will receive free access to thousands of curated resources and a community of over 600,000 business owners.