Episode #288 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Rodney Williams - Serial Entrepreneur & Co-Founder of SoLo Funds.
It’s impressive when an entrepreneur builds a company from scratch that ultimately scales, but I think it is even more impressive when you can combine a strong social mission to a company that scales, as well.
This is what Rodney and his Co-Founder, Travis Holoway, have built with SoLo Funds, a leading community finance platform focused on underserved communities. It’s a marketplace where you can lend money to those who are looking to borrow. It’s working, as the company has over 1.3M downloads and has surpassed 600K in loans funded and $300M in transaction value.
As the only Black owned B Corp Fintech in the U.S. and Canada, the company is backed by a variety of investors including Richelieu Dennis’ fund, New Voices and Serena Williams’ fund, Serena Ventures.
In this episode of our podcast, we cover:
- Advice for entrepreneurs of color on raising funding for their startup.
- Rodney’s background story including obtaining his MBA from Howard University and his time at Proctor & Gamble as a Brand Manager.
- We break down the tech and use cases for LISNR, a leading ultrasonic data platform company that he co-founded.
- All the details about SoLo Funds in terms of how the company came together and the impact that it is making.
- The story of his recent TV appearance on the Peacock series called Founding in Color.
- And so much more.