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How Shopify aims to level the playing field with its machine learning-driven model of lending
Shopify is widely known for giving independent merchants a platform to start, run, market and manage their businesses.
But over the past five years, the company has been steadily growing another part of its own business: Shopify Capital. Through this arm, the Canadian commerce giant revealed today that it has provided $2 billion in funding to tens of thousands of entrepreneurs.
Besides being a cool milestone, how it works is interesting. Merchants don’t necessarily have to apply for loans. Shopify’s machine learning models identify eligible merchants based on their previous sales history and store performance, according to Solmaz Shahalizadeh, vice president of data science and engineering, commerce intelligence at Shopify. If a merchant accepts a pre-approved offer, they can generally receive funding in two to five business days.
Female Shopify executives launch angel investing group, Backbone Angels theglobeandmail.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theglobeandmail.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Women leaders at Shopify launch new angel group to invest in women and non-binary founders
A group of individuals who have helped lead and build Shopify have launched a new angel group in Canada, focused on investing in women and non-binary founders with a specific focus on Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC)-led companies.
Called Backbone Angels, the group consists of 10 angel investors who have held various management-level roles at Shopify. The launch of the angel group was announced Monday, International Women’s Day.
The group includes Shopify chief talent office Brittany Forsyth; Erin Zipes, vice president of assistant general counsel; Anna Lambert director of product acceleration; Konval Matin, director of merchant storytelling; Atlee Clark, the director of operations for Shop; Solmaz Shahalizadeh, VP of commerce intelligence; and Arati Sharma, founder of Ghlee and former director of product marketing at Shopify; among others.