Houston startup partners with nonprofit to launch $70M fund to support businesses in marginalized communities

funding for all

The Equitable Access Fund is designed to meet demand for business credit among small businesses, especially those run by women, military veterans, people with disabilities, and members of the BIPOC, Latinx, and LGBTQ communities. Photo via HelloAlice.com

Houston-based fintech startup Hello Alice and the nonprofit Global Entrepreneurship Network have teamed up to create a $70 million fund that’ll help enable access to credit for small businesses.

Initial funding for the Equitable Access Fund, which debuted today, comes from Wells Fargo. GEN, which helps people start and build businesses, will manage the fund. Hello Alice’s fintech platform offers credit, loans, and grants to U.S. small business owners.

The new fund will provide credit enhancements — such as loan guarantees, loan-loss reserves and cash-collateral deposits — to ease risks for financing partners and free up money for underserved small business owners who face credit challenges.

The fund’s financing partners include First National Bank of Omaha, which issues Hello Alice’s small business credit card, and certain participants in Hello Alice’s financing marketplace. Other partners include the Mastercard payment network and the Kauffman Foundation, a nonprofit that fosters entrepreneurship.

The fund is designed to meet demand for business credit among small businesses, especially those run by women, military veterans, people with disabilities, and members of the BIPOC, Latinx, and LGBTQ communities. Hello Alice data shows that only one-fourth of small business owners have applied for a business credit card, and 85 percent of those applications were rejected due to poor credit or lack of credit.

Through the Equitable Access Fund, small business owners will be able to obtain a business credit card, build their credit profile, and eventually qualify for traditional credit and lending products. The $70 million fund seeks to unlock as much as $1 billion in credit for thousands of small business owners.

“We’re looking forward to creating more partnerships and bringing more institutions on board to the fund to achieve the goal of equitable access to credit,” Elizabeth Gore and Carolyn Rodz, co-founders of Hello Alice, say in a news release.

Wells Fargo Foundation is backing the Equitable Access Fund.

“Small businesses are a critical contributor to the economy and to building generational wealth,” says Otis Rolley, president of the foundation. “We need to create more pathways for historically marginalized small businesses to grow and prosper.”

In conjunction with GEN and Hello Alice’s Equitable Access Program, small business owners will receive credit-building education and technical assistance through a tool called the Business Health Score. The tool, which Hello Alice launched in April 2023, supplies an overview of a business’ financial condition.

Hello Alice Co-Founders Carolyn Rodz and Elizabeth Gore announced their latest opportunity for founders from marginalized communities to access funding. Photos via helloalice.com

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Tammi Wallace of the Greater Houston LGBT Chamber of Commerce is a panelist on The Ion's Pride in Tech event. Photo via LinkedIn

Q&A: How the Houston tech community can support LGBTQIA+ innovators

pride month

It's Pride Month, and the Houston tech community is celebrating its LGBTQIA+ community — as well as addressing some challenges faced within the business arena.

The Ion Houston, Austin-based Pride.VC, and Houston-based Sesh Coworking are collaborating on a Pride in Tech event, tomorrow, June 24, at noon at the Ion. It's free to attend and all is welcome. The Ion is also encouraging attendees to come early for a cup of coffee at Common Bond for the weekly Cup of Joey networking happy hour from 8:30 to 10:30 am.

The event will feature a panel moderated by Sesh's Maggie Segrich and Meredith Wheeler, and will tackle topics around how Houston can do more to build a truly inclusive business community. The panelists include

Wallace, who co-founded the Greater Houston LGBT Chamber of Commerce in 2016, joined InnovationMap for a quick Q&A ahead of the event.

InnovationMap: What kind of challenges do LGBTQIA+ founders in Houston face these days?

Tammi Wallace: First, LGBTQIA+ founders need to be at the table and have a voice. When we launched the Greater Houston LGBT Chamber of Commerce in 2016, our primary goal was to make sure we were seen, heard and engaged.

A seat and a voice at the table matters because LGBTQIA+ founders often lack visibility in the broader economic ecosystem and continue to experience discrimination. This means they cannot engage with their full and authentic selves as entrepreneurs and experience unique challenges. More specifically, they face challenges with access to venture capital and angel investment funds and these entrepreneurs lack strong LGBTQIA+ role models and mentors.

In fact, some LGBTQIA+ business owners never come out because they fear losing customers or clients. We hear stories all the time about LGBTQIA+ founders not seeking either traditional or non-traditional funding because they fear that they will have to out themselves in the process and fear discrimination and a lack of acceptance in the process. Disclosing personal information, such as financial information, in some cases, can effectively out them as an LGBTQIA+ person. Funding paths must be fully inclusive and ensure that the process is viewed from the lens of the LGBTQIA+ entrepreneur and how that can impact their access to capital.


    IM: How would you recommend these founders find the community and support they are looking for? 

    TW: Definitely get involved with the Houston LGBT Chamber of Commerce. Since 2016, the chamber has been working to build a strong community to support LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs and get them access to resources to help their businesses grow and thrive.

    We create connections and give LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs a space and place to walk through the door as their full and authentic selves. Through the Chamber, LGBTQIA+ founders can find support, whether from other entrepreneurs, mentors and Corporate Partners. We collaborate with the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC) as well as the other LGBTQIA+ chambers in Texas to drive connections and build a strong LGBTQIA+ business network across the country and the state.

    We encourage LGBTQIA+ businesses to get LGBTBE® Certified as well which offers even more connection with other certified businesses, major corporations and other key stakeholders and mentoring opportunities with major companies. We can help these founders get started with the LGBTBE® certification process and tap into national, regional and statewide resources.

    IM: How do you recommend startup development organizations, investors, and other businesses become better allies to the LGBTQIA+ startup community? 

    TW: Ensure that LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs and business and community leaders are engaged with your organization. Organizations like the Greater Houston LGBT Chamber of Commerce and the Ion are working "boots on the ground" to support the LGBTQIA+ business community and can offer the opportunity for meaningful collaboration. We also recommend advocating for others -- when you are around a table, look around and if the LGBTQIA+ community is not being represented, ask why.

    If representation is around the table, be intentional to ensure that we have a voice. As organizations that are involved in Houston's economic ecosystem, be strong and visible advocates for the LGBTQIA+ business community through engagement of businesses and the Chamber throughout the year. Be engaged -- not just during Pride Month, but twelve months out of the year.

    Whether a startup, investor or a business, you can help raise the profile for LGBTQIA+ businesses and the LGBTQIA+ business movement.

    Supporting the LGBTQ+ community is crucial to Houston business success. Ylanite Koppens/Pexels

    Rice research on why fighting workplace discrimination of LGBTQ+ employees boosts business

    Houston voices

    Being gay, lesbian or bisexual in the workplace often means facing choices that are deeply unfair. Choose to come out and risk being stigmatized or hide your orientation and prepare for a career weighted with the immense stress of secrecy. Theoretically, there are good reasons for businesses to embrace a workforce with diverse sexual orientations.

    First, much workplace discrimination is illegal, and litigation is pricey. More importantly, disdaining 5 to 15 percent of your workforce (the estimated percentage of the workforce population who are gay, lesbian or bisexual) means lagging behind the competition in the ability to recruit and retain top talent. But in reality, the legal protections prohibiting discrimination against employee's sexual orientation is often limited and what should be the rational business choice isn't always made.

    In an article published in The Encyclopedia of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Rice Business professor Michelle "Mikki" Hebl explores the gamut of workplace challenges for gay, lesbian and bisexual workers. Misconceptions about these employees, she found, are still widespread. First of all, employers and coworkers who stigmatize homosexual or bisexual employees often misunderstand their orientation as a choice. The subsequent treatment based on this misinformation can be viciously destructive.

    A common misperception is that sexual orientation can be easily concealed. To the contrary, many gay, lesbian or bisexual workers are actually outed by coworkers, Hebl notes. Because of this possibility, gay, lesbian and bisexual employees often spend an inordinate amount of their work time and energy simply managing their coworkers' response to their sexual orientation.

    And while some people characterize sexual orientation as just a political issue, those who are gay, lesbian and bisexual employed in a toxic workplace are often not seen simply as undesirables. They can be considered actual threats, their sexual orientation capable of somehow altering the identities of fellow workers. In some cases, associations with HIV and AIDS can lead to gay, lesbian and bisexual workers being treated as physical risks.

    Because of these obstacles, many workers are forced into painful choices at work. Do I put my partner's photo on my desk? Do I mention my weekend plans?

    To reduce this burden on productive workers, Hebl writes, businesses should codify their formal rules about managing harassment. Informally, companies need to create a culture in which people of different sexual orientations are supported rather than punished for their sexual orientation.

    But companies should know this road won't always be easy. Some workers will balk at a more diverse environment. The existence of clear policies, moreover, doesn't guarantee that subtle forms of discrimination won't take place. But the consequences of not establishing policies are considerable, including litigation and high turnover rates.

    In the best of all worlds, the burden of change should not be on the gay, lesbian and bisexual workers themselves. But it's not a perfect world, so Hebl also proposes strategies to help employees maximize workplace acceptance.

    These days, evidence suggests that in some cases, disclosing one's sexual orientation has benefits. Especially in supportive organizations, it often makes sense for people to reveal their sexual orientation after a period of time and with the support of other employees.

    At the same time, Hebl notes, employees may be likely to bully gay, lesbian and bisexual employees whose orientation is the only thing that's is known about them. Thus, gay, lesbian and bisexual workers face a challenge well-known to other minority employees: delivering exceptional work and displaying exceptional character in order to attempt to allay discrimination.

    From an institutional perspective, employers can support their individual gay, lesbian and bisexual employees in myriad ways. Companies can create a welcoming culture by offering same-sex partner benefits. Anti-discrimination policies, frequently voiced, send a message of safety to gay, lesbian and bisexual employees. Such measures require both awareness and real commitment, but the extra efforts pay off well beyond the day-to-day business of hiring and retention. They also encourage open-mindedness, creativity and commitment — and in the end, a more competitive work product.

    ------

    This story originally ran on Rice Business Wisdom in 2018. It's based on research by Michelle "Mikki" Hebl, Eden B. King, and Charles L. Law. Hebl is the Martha and Henry Malcolm Lovett Chair of Psychology at Rice University and a professor of management at Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University.

    "We're hoping to foster deeper and more inclusive representations and ally-ship at the intersection of art and technology." VlatkoRadovic/Getty Images

    Nonprofit rises to create resources and networking for Houston's LGBTQ+ community

    pride month

    As Pride Month winds down, a new nonprofit is ramping up efforts to provide resources, training, financial aid, and networking opportunities for LGBTQ+ members of Houston's tech and creative communities.

    Co-founders Alan Lett, creative director at event management company Staging Solutions, and Anthony Ferrell, a Microsoft store manager, officially launched Luminiris on June 25. Luminiris states that it's "committed to illuminating a new generation of the creative class seeking to pursue careers in the creative or tech fields — and give back along the way."

    "Houston is a city overwhelmed with talent, both artistic and technical. We've also got a strong and diverse LGBTQ+ community," Lett says in a Luminiris video on YouTube.

    The name of the organization is a mashup of the Latin word "lumen," meaning light, and the Greek word "iris," meaning color.

    "We want Luminiris to be a resource for the community, connecting creative types with technical minds in a professional setting. We're hoping to foster deeper and more inclusive representations and ally-ship at the intersection of art and technology. Through Luminiris, we want to promote LGBTQ+ talent in these fields," Lett and Ferrell say in a June 24 release.

    Luminiris is assuming responsibility for the Microsoft Pride Mixer hosted by Staging Solutions. Lett and Farrell started the mixer five years ago. The Pride Mixer will be the organization's flagship event, held every year on the Friday night before the Houston Pride Festival at the George R. Brown Convention Center.

    Since the 2020 Pride festival and parade are postponed, the mixer isn't being held this year. But Luminiris plans to bring it back in 2021.

    Throughout the rest of this year, Luminiris will focus on monthly virtual social events and online workshops for tech and creative professionals. It also will be collaborating with local networks for tech and creative professionals to help LGBTQ+ nonprofits and causes with graphic design, visual media, software training, and tech know-how.

    "Too many times, smaller nonprofits are blocked by the shadows of larger, developed nonprofits. … I can't wait to see the impact Luminiris will have on those who were once in the shadows," Atlantis Narcisse, founder of Save Our Sisters United, says in the Luminiris release.

    Save Our Sisters is a Houston-based advocacy group that serves cisgender and transgender women of color. Narcisse was one of the honorary grand marshals of last year's Pride parade in Houston.

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    Intuitive Machines lands $600M satellite deal, NASA ‘spacecraft bus’ contract

    space deals

    Houston-based space infrastructure company Intuitive Machines has scored two astronomical deals.

    The deals add to the company’s soaring success. As of June 30, Intuitive Machines had a record-high $1.8 billion backlog of orders, a $1.5 billion increase from the end of last year. The current backlog includes orders for more than 80 spacecraft.

    The company, which went public in 2023, expects this year’s revenue to total $900 million to $1 billion. In the first half of 2026, Intuitive Machines generated nearly $393 million in revenue.

    Intuitive Machines estimates its total available market is valued at more than $150 billion.

    $600 million-plus deal represents ‘important milestone’

    On Monday, Intuitive Machines said it picked up a $600 million-plus deal to develop three commercial satellites for an undisclosed customer over the course of about two years.

    Intuitive Machines says it will design, manufacture, set up and support several spacecraft “for a critical communications infrastructure mission.”

    Steve Altemus, the company’s CEO, says the deal represents “an important milestone for Intuitive Machines and reflects the confidence our customers place in our ability to deliver high-performance spacecraft for a broad range of mission needs.”

    Company nails down NASA deal for ‘spacecraft bus’

    A day after announcing the $600 million-plus deal, Intuitive Machines said it secured a new contract with NASA.

    Intuitive Machines says NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California will use the company’s IM 300 “spacecraft bus” for an EAGLE-VSWIR Earth observation mission. The mission is scheduled to launch in 2028.

    Aside from supplying the IM 300 bus, Intuitive Machines will carry out mission support services.

    The low-Earth-orbit mission will be equipped with Intuitive Machines’ hyperspectral visible to shortwave infrared (VSWIR) instrument. This technology sees colors and details that aren’t visible to the human eye.

    The instrument is “designed to perform surface biology and geology observations from Earth orbit while demonstrating technologies that could support future lunar and Mars exploration missions,” Intuitive Machines says.

    Intuitive Machines builds mission-critical spacecraft, systems, and infrastructure for business and government customers. To date, the company has produced more than 300 spacecraft, delivered over 575 pounds of payload to the moon and launched about 100 satellites.

    9 Houston-based companies make Fortune Global 500 list in 2026

    Worldwide Rankings

    Nine Houston companies landed on the 2026 Fortune Global 500 list, which ranks the world's largest corporations by revenue for the 2025 fiscal year.

    Houston's showing on the list was led by energy companies, with Spring’s ExxonMobil claiming the top local spot. Here’s what Houston-area companies made the list, and where they ranked:

    • No. 15 ExxonMobil
    • No. 36 Chevron
    • No. 61 Phillip 66
    • No. 159 Sysco
    • No. 243 ConocoPhillips
    • No. 292 Enterprise Products Partners
    • No. 343 Plains GP Holdings
    • No. 460 SLB
    • No. 481 Hewlett Packard Enterprise

    After 12 years as No.1, Arkansas-based Walmart was replaced this year by Seattle-based Amazon in the top spot for 2026. Amazon achieved this by bringing in $700 billion in revenue in 2025, representing a 12 percent increase from the previous year.

    "Across global business, we see again and again that the leaders who are winning are those who embrace change,” Alyson Shontell, Fortune's editor in chief and chief content officer, said in a news release. "Amazon has topped the Fortune Global 500, knocking Walmart off its pedestal. The company has continually reinvented itself across new businesses and bold bets—including a $200 billion capital commitment, largely to building its capacity for AI and cloud computing, in this year alone."

    The U.S. has 141 companies on the 2026 Fortune Global 500 list, which is the most of any country. Companies in America generated $15.5 trillion in aggregate revenues, a 6 percent increase from the previous year.

    The number of women CEOs at Fortune Global 500 companies reached a record of 34 top leaders, who represented 6.8 percent of CEOs of companies on the list.

    Technology was the standout growth industry on this year’s list, with 38 companies earning revenues that grew 20 percent to about $4 trillion in 2025, with profits climbing 36 percent to $835 billion. The financial sector accounted for the largest share of companies on the list again, with 123 companies in that sector. The energy sector claimed the No. 2 industry spot with 77 companies making the list.

    In June, the Fortune 500 list was released, and Texas led the United States with 57 Fortune 500 companies headquartered in the state, generating $2.8 trillion in combined revenue.

    Fast-growing Houston real estate startup surges to No. 7 on Inc. 5000

    growth report

    Houston-based Epique Realty has ridden the AI wave to rank among the Inc. 5000’s 10 fastest-growing private companies.

    With three-year revenue growth of 23,210 percent, the AI-powered real estate brokerage appears at No. 7 on this year’s Inc. 5000 list. The 2026 list ranks private companies based on percentage revenue growth from 2022 to 2025.

    Epique, founded in 2021, also ranks as the No. 1 fastest-growing company in Houston, No. 1 fastest-growing real estate company in the U.S., and No. 2 fastest-growing company in Texas.

    Epique’s annual revenue surpasses $91 million

    Between 2022 and 2025, the company’s annual revenue skyrocketed from $391,654 to more than $91.2 million. In 2025, the brokerage closed more than 23,000 deals and surpassed $7 billion in total sales, elevating Epique to the country’s 14th-largest real estate brokerage as measured by volume.

    Epique’s network has more than 4,000 agents.

    “To debut in the top 10 of the Inc. 5000 is absolute proof that when you relentlessly put agents first, exponential growth takes care of itself,” co-founder and CEO Joshua Miller said in a news release.

    “We didn’t achieve this by following the industry playbook; we achieved this by burning it,” Miller added. “By fully funding our agents’ success through free health care, proprietary AI, and world-class leads, we’ve built a company where agents can finally thrive.”

    The company’s other co-founders are Chris Miller, chief operating officer and vice president of expansion, and Janice Delci, chief financial officer.

    Epique expands business to Canada, Mexico, Australia

    The Millers and Delci have guided the company’s rapid expansion.

    “Scaling our corporate support team to match [our] hyper-growth while seamlessly expanding across all 50 states and internationally to Canada, Australia, and Mexico takes an incomparable operational infrastructure,” Miller said.

    “We have built an enterprise-grade technology ecosystem that allows us to absorb overhead and empower our agents at lightning speed,” he added. “This ranking validates that our disruptive model is working, and it is completely redefining the global industry standard.”

    Epique launched its platform in 2023, touting itself as the industry’s first AI-powered brokerage. The startup’s platform provides AI tools for real estate agents to improve their marketing, streamline content creation, and boost engagement with clients and prospects.

    Among Epique’s AI tools are:

    • ChatGPT for generation of property descriptions
    • AI-assisted creation of blog posts and agents’ bios
    • Production of Instagram quotes for social media marketing

    “When we started Epique, we wanted to build a company that genuinely cared for its agents’ financial and physical well-being,” Delci says. “To see that vision translate into this level of historic record-breaking growth is a beautiful testament to the true power of radical generosity.”

    Epique and fellow honorees will be recognized Oct. 14-16 at the 2026 Inc. 5000 Conference & Gala in Dallas.

    Six other Houston-area companies land in top 250

    Here are the six other Houston-area companies that claimed spots in the top 250 on the Inc. 5000 list. Each company name is followed by its ranking, headquarters city, and three-year growth rate.

    • No. 27 Empact Technologies, 8,275 percent
    • No. 60 Action1, 4,512 percent
    • No 75 Signs By G, 3,684 percent
    • No. 79 The ’Pause Life, 3,469 percent (Galveston)
    • No. 110 Turtlebox Audio, 2,576 percent
    • No. 178 Dahnani Private Equity Group, 1,904 percent (Stafford)

    How did companies in Texas’ other major metros fare?

    Here’s a breakdown of companies in the Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, and San Antonio areas that made the top 250 on the Inc. 5000. Again, each company name is followed by its ranking, headquarters city, and three-year growth rate.

    Austin (10 companies)

    • No. 9 Investment Watches, 15,741 percent
    • No. 72 Razor Metrics, 3,856 percent
    • No. 91 Autonomize AI, 2,921 percent
    • No. 102 Choose Your Horizon, 2,719 percent
    • No. 132 Wander Staffing, 2,296 percent
    • No. 144 Everyday Dose, 2,179 percent
    • No. 148 NetRise, 2,118 percent
    • No. 163 Nutrabound Labs, 1,999 percent (Bastrop)
    • No. 179 Steadily, 1,890 percent
    • No. 208 Tiny Health, 1,624 percent

    Dallas-Fort Worth (11 companies)

    • No. 3 Yantran, 258,740 percent (Allen)
    • No. 12 Paek Management Group, 12,520 percent (Irving)
    • No. 82 Elite Robotics and Automation, 3,334 percent (Fort Worth)
    • No. 133 Outamation, 2,291 percent (Southlake)
    • No. 147 Red Creek Solutions, 2,119 percent (Frisco)
    • No. 155 JobTread Software, 2,071 percent (Dallas)
    • No. 164 DAX Eyewear, 1,977 percent (Nevada)
    • No. 186 Optimized Waste Removal, 1,830 percent (Fort Worth)
    • No. 204 Freight Flex, 1,642 percent (Denton)
    • No. 212 Maverick Power, 1,591 percent (McKinney)
    • No. 229 Innovative Life Sciences, 1,494 percent (McKinney)

    San Antonio (one company)

    • No. 118 Hire With Near, 2,421 percent
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