# Arlan Hamilton

> Arlan Hamilton is a seed investor at Backstage Crowd backing Software. See 25 investments, check sizes, portfolio and contact details. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: Angel Investor
- Fund: Backstage Crowd
- Location: Los Angeles, United States
- Total investments: 25
- Last investment: Mar 2024
- Lead investor: 4%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arlanhamilton
- X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/arlanwashere
- Website: https://x.com/arlanwashere
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/arlanwashere

Arlan Hamilton is a seed investor at Backstage Crowd in Los Angeles focused on Software and FinTech. Arlan Hamilton is the Founder and Managing Partner of Backstage Capital, a venture capital firm dedicated to minimizing funding disparities in tech by investing in high-potential founders who are people of color, women, and/or LGBT. Started from scratch in 2015, Backstage has now raised more than $12 million and invested in more than 150startup companies led by underestimated founders. In 2018, they launched a four-city accelerator program in Los Angeles, Detroit, Philadelphia, and London.Arlan is the author of, It's About Damn Time, an inspirational and tactical business book for budding entrepreneurs and aspiring investors. She hosts the popular podcast, Your First Million, and has been featured on CNN, PBS, and others, and in 2019 became the first Black woman to have an entirely devoted episode of Emily Chang's Bloomberg 1.0.In October 2018, Arlan was featured on the cover of Fast Company magazine as the first Black woman non-celebrity to do so (following Oprah, Serena, and Beyonce). In 2019, Arlan and her mother, Mrs. Earline Butler-Sims, announced their new scholarship program, which kicked off with Oxford University's first-ever undergraduate scholarship for a Black student, as well as a commitment to fund a full-ride scholarship for a Psychology student at Mrs. Sims' alma mater, HBCU Dillard University.

## Contacts

5 contacts available for Arlan Hamilton: work email, personal email, work phone, personal phone and socials. Sign up free to unlock them: https://app.shizune.co/sign-up/investor-profiles/find-email/arlan-hamilton?utm_source=investor_profile

## Round sizes

| Stage | Round size |
| --- | --- |
| Seed | $1.5M–$6.3M |
| Pre-Seed | $100k–$2M |
| Series A | $20M–$27M |

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Software | 7 | 28% |
| FinTech | 5 | 20% |
| Education | 3 | 12% |
| Communities | 3 | 12% |
| Health Care | 3 | 12% |

71 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Seed | 13 | 52% |
| Pre-Seed | 7 | 28% |
| Series A | 2 | 8% |
| Funding Round | 2 | 8% |
| Series C | 1 | 4% |

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | 22 | 88% |
| Sweden | 1 | 4% |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| EdLight | EdLight lets teachers quickly see and give feedback on authentic student work. | $4M | Seed | Mar 27, 2024 |  |
| Cloudnine Augmented Intelligence (AI) | CloudNine leverages our AI tool to augmented data management by solving interoperability issues for siloed enterprises. Saving months of time and valuable resources enabling non-technical users the ability to take advantage of data driven decisions without any technical expertise. Optimizing AI for sophisticated analytics, data sharing, and dataprivacy. CloudNine AI was founded in 2019 and is headquartered in Phoenix Arizona with offices in Santa Monica, California, The Netherlands, Canada and Geneva Switzerland. | $100K | Pre-Seed | Jun 05, 2023 |  |
| Patientory | Patientory is empowering people to take charge of their own health. They’re revolutionizing the way doctors and patients interact and gain access to information, cutting out all layers and processes that currently are stumbling blocks in care coordination. They connect doctors, care providers, and consumers all within a single, secure platform –creating a care team that works together to provide the best care. | $1.5M |  | Apr 05, 2023 |  |
| Patientory | Patientory is empowering people to take charge of their own health. They’re revolutionizing the way doctors and patients interact and gain access to information, cutting out all layers and processes that currently are stumbling blocks in care coordination. They connect doctors, care providers, and consumers all within a single, secure platform –creating a care team that works together to provide the best care. | $1.5M | Seed | Apr 05, 2023 |  |
| Maven | Maven is an online platform for cohort-based courses, enabling experts to create and teach engaging, live online classes on AI, product, engineering, design & more. Founded by Gagan Biyani (Udemy co-founder), Wes Kao (co-founder of altMBA), and Shreyans Bhansali (co-founder of Socratic), Maven empowers instructors with tools to build, market,and scale high-quality learning experiences. | $25M |  | Sep 15, 2022 |  |
| Shop Latinx | Shop Latinx is the marketplace of lifestyle products made by and for Latinx. | $1M | Pre-Seed | Oct 15, 2021 |  |
| MicroAcquire | MicroAcquire is a startup acquisition marketplace that helps startups find buyers and get acquired. Their goal is to help 1,000+ entrepreneurs get acquired without fees and commissions and headaches. MicroAcquire was established in 2020 and is based in San Francisco, CA. | $6.3M | Seed | Jul 06, 2021 |  |
| Acquire.com | Acquire.com (formerly MicroAcquire) is the world's largest startup acquisition marketplace that helps startups and online businesses find buyers and get acquired. Their goal is to help all entrepreneurs get acquired without fees and commissions or headaches.Acquire.com (formerly MicroAcquire) was established in 2020 and is based in SanFrancisco, CA. | $6.3M | Seed | Jul 06, 2021 |  |
| ROOMBUS | Building smarter cities - starting with fully autonomous and modular smart houses. | $100K | Pre-Seed | Jun 30, 2021 |  |
| Maven | Maven is an online platform for cohort-based courses, enabling experts to create and teach engaging, live online classes on AI, product, engineering, design & more. Founded by Gagan Biyani (Udemy co-founder), Wes Kao (co-founder of altMBA), and Shreyans Bhansali (co-founder of Socratic), Maven empowers instructors with tools to build, market,and scale high-quality learning experiences. | $20M | Series A | May 20, 2021 |  |

10 of 25 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Bessemer Venture Partners](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/bessemer-venture-partners) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Everywhere Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/everywhere-ventures) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Kapor Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/kapor-capital) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Portfolia](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/portfolia) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/rise-of-the-rest) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Alumni Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/alumni-ventures-group) — VC Fund, 2 deals together

## About Backstage Crowd

VC Fund · West Hollywood, United States

Backstage Crowd is a funding platform for diverse deal flow. The platform was founded in 2020 by Arlan Hamilton.

1 contacts available at Backstage Crowd.

| Name | Title | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Arlan Hamilton | Founder | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/arlan-hamilton |

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## FAQ

### What does Arlan Hamilton invest in?

Arlan Hamilton invests primarily in Software, FinTech and Education startups, most often at Seed and Pre-Seed stage. Most of the 25 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### What is Arlan Hamilton's check size?

Arlan Hamilton typically joins rounds of $1.5M–$6.3M at Seed, $100k–$2M at Pre-Seed and $20M–$27M at Series A. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds Arlan Hamilton participates in.

### How do I contact Arlan Hamilton?

Public channels for Arlan Hamilton include LinkedIn, X (Twitter) and the website linked on this profile. For a verified work email and phone number, create a free Shizune account — contact data is searched across 20+ sources and validated before delivery, so your outreach lands in the right inbox.

### When did Arlan Hamilton last invest?

The most recent investment recorded for Arlan Hamilton closed in Mar 2024. Shizune tracks 25 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.

### Is Shizune's investor data accurate?

Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.

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