Access to Finance

I am absolutely thrilled to announce our recent partnership with co-founders Michele
Romanow of Dragon’s Den and Andrew D’Souza, and their entire network of VC’s through their company Clearco!

The Clearco team is currently operating internationally and have $2B+ to deploy to founders and business owners just like you that need funding! The Clear Angel program is their entry-level funding product, where businesses need to earn a minimum of $2K/month in revenue to qualify.

What a wild ride my startup journey has been so far! It started with my first introduction to the Zone Learning network at Ryerson University via the Legal Innovation Zone in October 2019. I was on the winning team of the final pitch competition in March 2020, and then the whole world shut down one week later. This introduction led to my becoming the founder of LocAlley, currently housed in the Social Ventures Zone, for just over one year now.

One thing remains clear and consistent for me: securing funding for early-stage ventures is an incredibly challenging and difficult landscape to navigate. I understand this first-hand as we are constantly working on securing our own funding for LocAlley.

As a pre-revenue startup at this time, no one on our core team ever conceptualized that we would be positioned to offer financial assistance to small business owners and startup founders before we secured funding ourselves. Yet here I am, writing on a Tuesday morning to let you know that we have indeed done just that!

As Michele shared at one of our recent Zoom meetings, the top cheque that Clearco has written to date was $100K, so this is a financing product that has been designed to grow with you and your business. Being positioned to learn and grow from established tech founders and VC’s through joining this network is an incredible honour – I am learning new things all the time about this funding landscape – lessons I am happy to extend to our own LocAlley community.

Clearco can surface from $10K – $10M in capital using data science to identify high-growth funding opportunities. Funds are deployed in under 24 hrs and come with no personal guarantees, equity, or credit checks.

How the Clearco process works:

• Step 1: fill out LocAlley’s google form to determine your business’ eligibility
• Step 2: using LocAlley’s personalized referral code (emailed after google form received), create your own account in Clearco’s funding portal
• Step 3: wait for Clearco to set up a meeting with you to discuss your business’ funding needs
• Step 4: successful applicants will be paid in as a little as 48 hours
• Step 5: businesses that have been funded by Clearco through LocAlley’s referral code will be promoted on our social media!