{"id":173577,"date":"2025-10-01T20:10:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T20:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/173577\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T20:10:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T20:10:09","slug":"californias-halogen-ventures-is-ready-to-bet-big-on-alabama-startups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/173577\/","title":{"rendered":"California’s Halogen Ventures Is Ready To Bet Big on Alabama Startups"},"content":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles-based venture capitalist\u00a0Jesse Draper<\/a>\u00a0and her fund\u00a0Halogen Ventures<\/a>\u00a0recently closed its\u00a0$30 million Fund III to invest in\u00a0early-stage startups<\/a> building the \u201cfuture of family.\u201d<\/p>\n

That fund sees opportunity in Alabama. Halogen is the first out-of-state VC firm to receive funding from Innovate Alabama<\/a>, a statewide public-private partnership dedicated to advancing entrepreneurship, technology, and innovation in Alabama, and its\u00a0InvestAL<\/a>\u00a0program. The Halogen team announced late in 2024 that it would be investing $10 million<\/a> into building a pipeline of female founders in the state.<\/p>\n

Draper and her team have spent a good part of the last year crisscrossing the state. She has already met entrepreneurs in places like Birmingham, Montgomery, Mobile, Tuscaloosa, and Huntsville, with more cities planned.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst we came out here and we just listened,\u201d Draper told Hypepotamus. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to be the California fund coming and telling people what to do\u2026every ecosystem is different.\u201d<\/p>\n

That difference is an opportunity for Halogen, as the fund has started deploying capital into the state\u2019s early-stage community.<\/p>\n

\"FromFrom left to right: Adriana Gadala-Maria (Halogen Sr. Associate), Ashley Balla (Halogen Partner), Walt Maddox (Mayor of Tuscaloosa), Jesse Draper (Founder and General Partner of Halogen Ventures), Young Boozer (Alabama State Treasurer), Jennifer Mandelbaum (Halogen Partner), Gordon Martin (Director, University of Alabama)<\/p>\n

Putting Money Into Alabama<\/p>\n

The Halogen team has wasted no time putting investment dollars into the state. The team has already invested in three startups. That includes childcare platform Moxi<\/a>, HRTech startup Auditocity<\/a>\u00a0(featured in Hypepotamus\u00a0in 2024<\/a>), and staffing tech company Croux<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"pitchDraper and first place winner, Ruth Young-Loaza of NEETSHEETS<\/p>\n

In just 48 hours this month, Halogen invested $1.62 million into 10 companies.<\/p>\n

Those investments came from two pitch competitions the team hosted in Huntsville and Tuscaloosa. Companies like Doctours, Neet Sheets, SymbyAI, SetaTech, SkyfireAI, Checkmyspot, Accelerate Wind, Krillpay, Nyad AI and Generational Systems took home top prizes.<\/p>\n

Draper said Alabama\u2019s tech ecosystem impressed her because it spans multiple cities. She sees strong entrepreneurs across the state, be it students at Auburn, aerospace ventures in Huntsville, consumer brands in Mobile, AgTech startups in Dothan, and SaaS platforms in Birmingham.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking for great technologies,\u201d she added. \u201cWe\u2019re looking for companies that will create jobs in the state and stimulate the economy in the state in a new way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Get To Know Halogen Ventures<\/p>\n

Draper, daughter of famed VC Tim Draper<\/a>, started off as a media entrepreneur before launching her investing career. Since its founding in 2016, Halogen has invested in over 70 companies with its focus on consumer technology companies led by women.<\/p>\n

Halogen\u2019s portfolio companies have generated over $10 billion in market value. Well-known brands in its portfolio include TheSkimm, ThirdLove, Ellevest, and Everlywell.<\/p>\n

Halogen has just started investing in Alabama, but the fund already knows the Southeast well. Halogen previously invested in Goodr<\/a> and Ome<\/a>, two Atlanta-based companies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles-based venture capitalist\u00a0Jesse Draper\u00a0and her fund\u00a0Halogen Ventures\u00a0recently closed its\u00a0$30 million Fund III to invest in\u00a0early-stage startups building…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[84,4203,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-173577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-entrepreneurship","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}