How Alinea Invest went from a college business plan to raising $10 Million

Eve Halimi and her co-founder Anam wrote a 100-page business plan on Saturdays while working full-time on Wall Street. Today, Alinea Invest, the AI-powered investing app they built, is used by roughly 1% of the U.S. population. In between: a Y Combinator acceptance won on founder-market fit alone, two years of iteration before anything worked, a $10 million Series A led by Play Ventures, and a $20 million cohort-financing facility that fuels their growth without touching equity. In this episode, Eve breaks down the onboarding rewrite that took Alinea from near-zero to $80K in a single month, and the founder-led TikTok strategy that turned one 60-second story video into 50,000 downloads in a day. She gets specific on the mechanics of debt financing for consumer apps, why they waited far too long to charge for the product, how "Gen Z messaging" ended up converting 40-year-old construction workers, and what an AI investing companion that "thinks and acts for you" actually looks like. I hope you enjoy! This episode is brought to you by Vanta. Vanta's Agentic Trust Platform takes the manual work out of your security and compliance process and replaces it with continuous automation, whether you’re pursuing your first framework or managing a complex program. Go to http://vanta.com/ruffin for $1,000 off Vanta today!! More on Eve Halimi: LinkedIn:   / eve-halimi   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/genuine.jew... Website: https://www.alinea-invest.com/ More on Host Ruffin Mitchener: https://beacons.ai/ruffin About Brydge Club: Brydge Club, hosted by Ruffin Mitchener, aims to bridge the $1.7 trillion financing gap for female founders. Every Wednesday, the show features in-depth interviews with industry leaders and innovators, educating and empowering women in venture capital and entrepreneurship. Through insightful discussions, Brydge Club seeks to inspire listeners to break barriers and achieve success in the business world.