Village Capital Marks 100th Investment

Wexus Technologies was the 100th company to be selected for investment through the “peer review” process

For the past eight years at Village Capital we’ve been working toward a single goal: how can we get more people solving big global problems through entrepreneurship?

Big problems to us are grounded in the foundations of our society and environment: how we learn and work, how we stay healthy as we age, how we weather financial shocks, how we manage our natural resources and energy use in the face of climate change. These problems require lots of innovative solutions — and we’re proud to announce that we’ve just made our 100th investment to address them, by completing an investment in Wexus Technologies, an Internet-of-Things technology focused on energy and water efficiency for agriculture.

Each of the 100 entrepreneurs in our portfolio participated in a Village Capital investment-readiness program, making them part of a global group of 900+ Village Capital alumni. These hundreds of innovators are working in the sectors that people rely on most day to day: health, food & agriculture, education, energy, and financial services. Together, they are building the healthy communities of tomorrow.

Our model has been about making sure anyone with a big idea has a chance to try to turn that idea into a business — our portfolio demonstrates this inclusive approach, with 44% of our capital deployed in female-led companies, 26% in companies led by Latinx and African American founders, and 85% outside of the concentrated markets of the Bay Area, Boston, and New York City that receive the vast majority of venture dollars.

What’s next?

If our first chapter was about democratizing access to entrepreneurship, our next chapter will be about democratizing access to the solutions that our entrepreneurs create. We’ll focus on helping our portfolio companies scale to match the size of the problems they’re solving. These 100 companies have already served nearly 13 million people around the globe — and they are just getting started.

Victoria Fram is Managing Director of VilCap Investments, LLC, and co-founder of Village Capital. Explore VilCap Investments’ portfolio here.