Torch Capital

Lili is thrilled to announce a strategic collaboration with Dun & Bradstreet, a global leader in business decisioning data, analytics, and business credit reporting solutions, to empower small businesses to take steps to establish business credit. Dun & Bradstreet’s small business customers can now apply to open a Lili business checking account directly from the Dun & Bradstreet myD&B platform, which provides access to D&B products and solutions for small businesses together in one centralized portal. More than three quarters of small business owners are concerned about their ability to access capital, and hurdles in accessing credit can significantly curtail business growth. “With a majority of small businesses relying on their personal savings to fund their business due to lack of access to credit and capital, there is a pressing need for more tools to help small businesses succeed,” said Lilac Bar David, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Lili. “We are delighted that Dun & Bradstreet has chosen Lili to help its customers access innovative financial solutions, providing them with better resources to set them up for success.” #SmallBusiness #BusinessCredit #DunAndBradstreet #CreditInsights #FinancialSolutions *Lili is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided by Choice Financial Group, Member FDIC, or Sunrise Banks, N.A., Member FDIC. By integrating your Lili Business Bank Account through the D&B Credit Insights banking integration feature, there may be potential for you to positively impact your Delinquency and Failure Scores. Dun & Bradstreet requires a minimum of six months of business banking transaction history to be able to potentially impact these scores.

Christopher Harper is a VC at Torch Capital. Before Torch, Chris was an early-stage investor at Red Sea Ventures, a New York-based fund focused on consumer and consumerized B2B businesses. While at Columbia Business School, Chris was president of the VC Fellows program. As a fellow, he spent a year with General Catalyst developing a thesis on consumer services for the new millennial family. Chris was also a member of the New York investment team for Rough Draft Ventures, investing in pre-seed and seed companies founded by students. Earlier in his career, Chris ran edtech investing programs for the Department of Education at Luminary Labs for three years and worked in the Goldman Sachs trading division for two years. Chris graduated from Yale with a BA in History, and an MBA from Columbia Business School. Topics: - Blurring Lines between Consumer and B2B - Impact of AI on Early-Stage Consumer - Future of Consumer Tech #VCPodcast #VentureCapital #ConsumerTech #AIinTech #StartupInvesting

Bench Accounting and Shopify alumni announce $11 million CAD to build “the Stripe for accounting” with Teal. #YVRtech #CDNtech

My whole life has come to this point - today (!) Thank you to Axios and Lucinda Shen for covering Baselayer's story Teamed up with Timothy Hyde & raised $6.5M in seed funding from top VCs and banking experts to start Baselayer - the first AI-Native business identity, fraud and risk platform verifying 100% of good businesses. The journey was long, but fulfilling: Innovative Partners - Beyond grateful for the almost 30 financial services companies (that touch millions of businesses) that we’ve helped verify over 100k businesses and structurally prevent millions of dollars in repeat B2B fraud Intentional Vision - When Tim and I first met three years ago, we knew with his expertise in Machine Learning (and one ML co’ exit under his belt to a Fortune 500) - we had the tools in hand to make a massive impact in financial services. After 100s of interviews with Banking and Lending execs, the problem became clear: credit scores for small businesses are broken and we could solve that.  Immense Gratitude:  To Tim - for there would be no Baselayer without his effortless brilliance.  To our incredible employees who took an early risk on us. To our forward thinking customers who gave us the opportunity to help them.  To our unbelievable investors, who have believed in us from day 0. & of course to my parents. They’re Egyptian immigrants and humble me every day (my mom has asked 3 times if we have a 401k yet). My dad offered to sponsor 10 people’s Axios subscriptions who comment below so they can read our press release - so please let him know in the comments if you’d like that (!!) Investors: Torch Capital, Afore Capital, Picus Capital, Founder Collective, Gilgamesh Ventures, Four Acres Capital, Comma Capital, Picks and Shovels Experts: Eric Woodward, Jonathan Weiner, Jason Mikula, Stuart Cook, Rory O'Reilly, Kieran O'Reilly, Miguel Armaza, Maia Bittner, Jack Arenas, Thejo Kote, Alek Koenig, Daniel M., Eric Rosenthal, Alain C. Glanzman, & so many more Looking forward to accelerating the US economy - one good small business at a time. https://lnkd.in/edAi9jvv #fintech #ai #tech #lending #smallbusiness #genai #innovation