While access to capital, mentorship and networks are critical to the success of male and female entrepreneurs, women who start businesses have a more difficult time getting the help that they need, especially when it comes to financing. Women receive just 3 percent of venture capital in the U.S., a dismal statistic, according to Carolyn Rodz (pictured, left), founder and chief executive officer of Circular Board LLC, a collaborative accelerator for growth-oriented female entrepreneurs.

In an effort to disrupt the startup world by creating an ecosystem for women founders, Circular Board and Dell EMC collaborated to build Hello Alice, the first artificial intelligence-based virtual advisor for women entrepreneurs. Hello Alice was unveiled at this week’s Dell EMC World.

“[Hello] Alice is the answer to integration into the existing startup ecosystem and connectivity to resources,” Rodz said.

During Dell EMC World this week in Las Vegas, Nevada, Rodz and Elizabeth Gore (pictured, right), entrepreneur in residence at Dell EMC, joined Rebecca Knight (@knightrm) and Paul Gillin (@pgillin), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile live streaming studio. In addition to discussing how Hello Alice can help women entrepreneurs, they also talked about how it works for users. (* Disclosure below.)

Talking to Hello Alice

To access Hello Alice, a founder creates her profile, based on industry, stage of company growth and geographical location. Hello Alice then curates, centered around what a user is looking for (for example, a founder who needs an attorney) within her particular industry and close to her location.

As Alice populates, she gets smarter and smarter about user’s needs, using predictive learning to help make better choices for users, Rodz explained.

Pivotal Software Inc., one of Dell’s family of companies, worked with the Circular Board team to figure out: “‘How do women access information? How do they access capital? Why aren’t so many of them integrating into existing systems?’” Gore said.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s independent editorial coverage of Dell EMC World 2017. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Dell EMC World. Neither Dell nor other sponsors have editorial influence on content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE