Announcing our First Global VilCap Communities
Entrepreneurs can solve the world’s biggest challenges.
Around the world, 1.3 billion people live without electricity, 60 million children have no access to a primary education, and accelerating climate change keeps millions more from breaking the cycle of poverty.
Yet today, the economy is in trouble because too many potential entrepreneurs lack the opportunity to build solutions to these problems.
Today, we’re excited to announce our first Global VilCap Communities, a collection of the world’s best early-stage firms supporting entrepreneurs tackling major problems in their respective regions.
Each Community brings unique insight into effectively scaling the world’s newest innovations that can alleviate poverty and make the planet more sustainable and resilient. This year, the leaders will focus on growing startups working on particularly prevalent issues in their own regions.
Each Community, a high-potential entrepreneur training program or early-stage investor, brings unique insight into effectively supporting the next generation of problem-solvers. They will work with entrepreneurs addressing financial inclusion in Indonesia, where just one in four adults have a savings account; energy in India, where hundreds of millions of people living off-grid; and environmental sustainability in Ecuador, which lost 30% of its forest cover in the last decade.
Throughout 2016, the Communities will support more than 100 early-stage ventures through their own entrepreneur training programs, and they will invest at least $550,000 — all selected through peer review. Each Community will also have access to an international network of support to help their startups scale beyond their local region.
Along the way, they’ll be sharing their experiences and lessons learned to help create a roadmap for others to support their community’s entrepreneurs. We’ll be posting updates and stories on Twitter at @VCCommunities and on our website.
Learn more about our new Community leaders here. We had more than 70 communities apply to be part of the Pioneer Group, and we’re already thinking about the next wave of Communities — send us a note at vccinfo@vilcap.com if you’d like to bring a Community to your region.
Stay tuned for our US Communities, which we’ll announce in late February.
VilCap Communities — Global
Chanzo Capital (Based in Mauritius, focused on the KINGS region)
Emerging Markets Entrepreneurs (Cambodia)
Impact Amplifier (South Africa)
Invest2Innovate (Pakistan)
Kinara Capital (Indonesia)
Kiwa (Ecuador)
Pomona Impact (Guatemala)
Sangam Ventures (India)
She Leads Africa (Nigeria/Ghana)
Spark* International (Multiple countries)
Wennovation Hub (Nigeria)
