They are, by far, the smartest species to ever walk the earth, but when it comes to their error-prone tendencies, even the ingenious human beings cannot catch a break. This dynamic has already been reinforced quite a few times throughout our journey, with each testimony practically forcing us to look for a defensive cover. We will, however, solve our conundrum in the most fitting way possible, and we’ll do so by bringing dedicated regulatory bodies into the fold. Having a well-defined authority across each and every area was a game-changer, as it wasted no time in concealing our many shortcomings. Now, the kind of utopia you would generally expect from such a development did arrive, but at the same time, it failed to stick around for very long. Talk about what led to such an unfortunate development, the answer will put more spotlight on technology than it will on anything else. You see, the moment technology got its layered nature to take over the scene, it allowed every individual an unprecedented chance to exploit others for their own benefit. In case this didn’t sound bad enough, the whole runner soon began to materialize on such a massive scale that it expectantly overwhelmed our governing forces and sent them back to the drawing board. After spending a long time in the wilderness, though, it seems like the regulatory contingent is ready to make a comeback. The same has only turned more and more evident in recent times, and assuming everything goes as per the plan, a new piece of funding will do a lot to make that trend bigger and better moving forward.
Beam, startup that helps citizens in navigating through the neccassary protocols to avail government financial aid, has successfully secured over $6.4 million in Series A financing. Led by Potencia Ventures, the round saw further participation coming from the likes of Spring Point Partners, American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact, Imaginable Futures, Lumina Impact Ventures, Michelson Runway, and Schmidt Futures. According to certain reports, the company will use the newly-raised cash to scale up its proprietary platform, while also dedicating a chunk of the money towards conducting an extensive recruitment drive. Previously known as Edquity, Beam started out its journey with a primary intention of automating various relevant government procedures, and consequentially, reducing the humongous administrative workload. In order to achieve the stated goal, the company put-together a platform, which was designed to help public agencies administer rent and utility relief programs, streamline benefit applications, process payments, deal with compliance, reporting, case management, and carry out many other critical tasks. Interestingly enough, Beam’s initial focus was entirely on students, but its solution eventually proved itself as too good to not be used for something bigger.
“With widening wealth gaps and economic conditions only working for a small percentage of the population, there has never been a greater need to bridge generational equity gaps and bring dignity to the American social safety net,” said David Helene, CEO and founder of Beam, in that statement. “After seeing our impact working in the education space to get emergency aid to students, we realized we could apply our technology and learnings to other government programs to get critical services to our most vulnerable populations.”
Since the year 2020, Beam has processed over $180 million, helping the money reach more than 300,000 US households. As for the current picture, the company is actively operating in more than 16 states, while enjoying partnerships with 53 different governments.
