Meet Our US Communities
Village Capital, in partnership with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the Sorenson Impact Center, and Rise of the Rest, is excited to announce the inaugural cohort of VilCap Communities US.
On March 18, we launched our VilCap Communities in Salt Lake City, Utah to accelerate the closing of the "pioneer gap" for entrepreneurs who can change the world.
The inaugural cohort is comprised of 16 Communities across the United States, representing over $1 million in pre-committed, peer-selected investment:
Austin, Texas
Healthcare
SoftMatch is a global network of the best startups in the world. We are a mission-based service company committed to connecting organizations that will mutually benefit from knowing each other. Our vision is to strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem by facilitating <$25M exits and by making the highly fragmented global tech startup community more accessible for strategic investment and partnership. We want to change the narrative that "success" is achieved and measured only by the unicorns.
Community Partner: Jackson Giles
Baltimore, Maryland
Healthcare
Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures is committed to bringing game changing ideas, products, technologies and ventures to the world by protecting and commercializing the intellectual property created across the University. We aspire to develop a strong innovation ecosystem at the university and more broadly, in Baltimore, working with local government, philanthropic, industry and other innovation partners serving as a catalyst for economic development as well as talent attraction, retention and growth in the city of Baltimore.
Community Partner: Christy Wyskiel
Launch NY is a 501(c)(3) venture development organization headquartered in Buffalo, NY that was established to identify, support, and invest in high-growth companies to spur an entrepreneurial culture and economic transformation in the Western half of New York State. Since starting operations in 2012, Launch NY has served more than 450 startups across industry sectors, comprising nearly 1,200 jobs and yielding nearly $25M in follow-on investments via its business mentoring services delivered by local entrepreneurs-in-residence (EIRs) paired with a new national mentor network.
Community Partner: Marnie LaVigne, Mark Branden
The University at Buffalo (UB) is a premier, research-intensive public university and a member of the Association of American Universities. As the largest, most comprehensive institution in the 64-campus State University of New York system, our research, creative activity and people positively impact the world.
Community Partners: Tom Murdock, Martin Casstevens
Chicago, Illinois
Female Entrepreneurship
1871 is the largest entrepreneurial hub in the world and is the home to over 400 early-stage, high-growth digital startups and portfolio companies. Located in The Merchandise Mart, our 120,000 square foot facility is also the headquarters of nationally recognized accelerators, TechStars Chicago and Impact Engine; half a dozen industry-specific incubators in key areas such as real estate, education technology, digital currencies, and food; and several emerging tech talent schools including Designation, Fullbridge and the Startup Institute, just to name a few. 1871 is the second home to Chicago-based VCs, Pritzker Group Venture Capital, OCA Ventures, MATH Venture Partners, Vue Ventures and Chicago Ventures, as well as hosting satellite offices for Northwestern University, University of Illinois, University of Chicago, Illinois Institute of Technology, Loyola University-Chicago, and DeVry.
Leader: Howard Tullman
WiSTEM is a 16-week curriculum-based program that connects women to capital, community and technology resources. The program offers a tailored experience –a rigorous, yet flexible program structured around the challenges and opportunities faced by women entrepreneurs. Its content and mentorship are designed specifically around the individual companies admitted into the program. By participating in the program, entrepreneurs receive access to the 1871 community and all of its resources including office space, as well as mentorship from some of Chicago's top female (and male) business leaders, and access to 1871's top University partnerships.
Community Partner: Jessica Williams
Cincinnati, Ohio
Energy, Water
Cintrifuse facilitates the building of high-growth companies in Cincinnati, OH. The organization fosters and maintains a network of funders, educators and talent in order to support startup companies throughout their life cycle. Cintrifuse puts the entrepreneur first and dedicates itself to the success of its members. Unique to other startup advocacy groups, Cintrifuse also operates a for-profit fund that strictly invests in other venture funds (a fund of funds).
Community Partner: Eric Weissmann
Xavier University represents an institution of perfect balance. It is where challenging academics are enriched by a strong community of support and a city full of opportunity. Xavier creates learning opportunities through rigorous academic programs integrated with co-curricular engagement.
Community Partner: Tom Merrill
Fresno, California
Agriculture, Energy, Water
The WET Center provides connections, resources, and business support for entrepreneurs and high-potential technology companies in the central San Joaquin Valley focusing on water, energy, and agriculture. The WET Center’s vision is to have a thriving water, energy and agriculture technology industry in the central San Joaquin Valley creating a strong economic base with high-paying knowledge-based careers.
Community Partner: Helle Petersen
Honolulu, Hawaii
Agriculture, Energy
The HUI is a collaborative initiative comprised of Hawaii’s various entrepreneurial and investment focused entities to promote the commercialization of Agriculture and Energy innovation. We have already received participating commitment from four entities including Sultan Ventures, XLR8UH, Maui Accelerator Program (MAP), and Energy Excelerator.
Community Partners: Omar Sultan, Tarik Sultan
Kansas City, Missouri
Education
Think Big is an innovation center and community resource, enriching the region’s business ecosystem and serving our tenants, clients, accelerator cohorts and greater community as thought leaders, partners, mentors and facilitators. Our state-of-the-art business center offers a combination of technology, innovation and community space that helps turn ideas into enterprises, links businesses together, better connects education to jobs, and encourages cross-sector collaboration. We will be collaborating with a local education programming partner, The Lean Lab, to architect education innovation in KC.
Community Partner: Kari Keefe
The Lean Lab envisions a Kansas City that is a world-renowned hub for education innovation. Lean Lab is an early-stage incubator program that launches solutions that better teaching and learning. Lean Lab hosts ongoing community events that offer teachers, students, community leaders, and entrepreneurs development in innovation frameworks specifically geared toward education. Each summer, The Lean Lab hosts a 4.5 week Incubator Fellowship program, which includes empathy work, rapid prototyping, testing, reiterating, and a public Launch Day. The most viable solutions from the Incubator Fellowship are then invited to join the piloting stage of The Lean Lab’s Incubator Fellowship program.
Community Partner: Katie Boody
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Energy, Water
Founded on a century of discovering inventive solutions for water issues, The Water Council was established as a 501(c)(3) organization in 2009 by Milwaukee-area businesses, education and government leaders. With a mission of aligning the regional freshwater research community with water-related industries, we take great pride in having coalesced the leading water technology cluster in the United States and one of the most powerful in the world. Headquartered in the Global Water Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, The Water Council links together global water technology companies, innovative water entrepreneurs, government agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGO), acclaimed academic research programs and some of the nation’s brightest and most energetic water professionals.
Community Partners: Elizabeth Thelen, Scott Mosley
CSA Partners, LLC is a venture fund investing in early stage, high growth, companies in the Midwest, with particular focus in Wisconsin. We partner with entrepreneurs to help them build and grow great innovative companies in our community. We look for extraordinarily passionate entrepreneurs that exemplify and embody the Midwestern values of hard work, authenticity, honesty, integrity and a sense of community. We invest in startups that have a well-defined vision and bring elegant solutions to clearly articulated problems. They utilize a lean, tenacious and responsible management style that is data driven and outcome focused. They are able to innovate and bring new business models to existing markets to achieve smarter solutions.
Community Partner: Steve Mech
Minneapolis, MN
Agriculture, Food
MN Cup is the premier resource for early stage entrepreneurs, supporting and accelerating the development of breakthrough business ideas across Minnesota. We support emerging entrepreneurs through events, educational programming and an annual startup competition that provides them with tools, resources and support to launch and accelerate the development of their new ventures.
Community Partner: Melissa Kjolsing
Nashville, Tennessee
Healthcare
The Nashville Entrepreneur Center (EC) is a public private partnership that assist startups in connecting to the resources they need to start and grow their businesses. Given Nashville's historic tradition in both healthcare and music, the EC has a primary focus on healthcare and music related businesses, although the organization also has programming to foster development of businesses outside of this area. In 2015 alone, the EC has graduated 173 companies from accelerator and pre-accelerator programming, created countless jobs, and helped leverage $26m in follow on capital.
Community Partners: Heather McBee, Sam Lingo
New Orleans, Louisiana
Multiple-Sector Focus
Propeller: A Force for Social Innovation is a 501c3 nonprofit dedicated to supporting social innovation in New Orleans. We drive social, environmental, and economic impact in New Orleans by incubating ventures that have the potential to solve our city’s most pressing issues. Our vision is to build a critical mass of entrepreneurs tackling key challenges in our issue areas of food security, water management, healthcare, and educational equity in order to make significant change for underserved individuals.
Community Partner: Andrea Chen
The New Orleans Startup Fund (“The Startup Fund” or “NOSF”) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) evergreen seed fund established by business and financial leaders in the Greater New Orleans area to accelerate the growth of early-stage, innovative businesses into venture-ready companies. The Startup Fund’s mission is to create jobs and economic prosperity for the 10-parish Greater New Orleans region by providing seed capital and business assistance to early-stage firms that demonstrate significant growth potential.
Portland, Maine
Agriculture, Food
The Maine Accelerates Growth Initiative (MxG) accelerates the growth of companies, communities, and talent by funding, creating, and leveraging high impact entrepreneurship and innovation programs and events through a collaborative and complementary network of organizations and individuals propelling prosperity across Maine. We study emerging best practices to continuously improve our approach to creating an extraordinary future for Maine.
Community Partner: Jess Knox
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Financial Technology
Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern PA combines the best practices of early stage investing with a higher purpose – to lead the region’s technology community to new heights, creating jobs and transforming lives. We are Partners with a Purpose. For over 30 years, Ben Franklin has been the leading seed stage capital provider for the Philadelphia region’s technology sectors, investing over $175 million in more than 1,750 regional technology companies. Since our inception in 1982, Ben Franklin’s companies have created over 31,000 jobs and $5.1B in regional output.
Community Partners: RoseAnn Rosenthal, Jason Bannon, Omar Mencin
St. Louis, Missouri
Financial Technology
SixThirty was founded four years ago as a public/private collaboration between major FinServ corporations, startup economic development players, and equity investors to foster startups by bridging the divide between entrepreneurial solutions and corporate problems. Two dozen large corporations HQ'd in STL in the brokerage, mortgage and fintech space provide mentors and (aggregated) investment through a fund and program which is professionally managed and leveraged up by accredited investors. The primary objective is to enable startup growth through sales, not capital acquisition.
Community Partners: Atul Kamra, Jay Delong
Washington, DC
Inclusive Entrepreneurship
GROUNDWORK VENTURES
Groundwork Ventures, affiliated with the Towns Group, creates resources to empower inclusive innovation ecosystems. We're accelerating the growth of seed stage startups. We're a bridge to counsel, capital & connections.
Community Partner: Jason Towns