About Village Capital
We're a non-profit with an affiliated venture capital Fund.
The non-profit side runs training programs for groups of early-stage entrepreneurs that are working on a particular problem (i.e. financial health, sustainable agriculture) Each program concludes with our Fund investing in the top two companies, as selected by their peers.
Since 2012 we've run seven programsand made13 investmentsin sub-Saharan Africa, including
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PayGo Energy, which sells clean cooking fuel on a pay-as-you-go basis. They recently closed $1.43M Series Seed debt and equity financing led by Novastar Ventures.
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PiggyBankNG, which helps debit card holders save - the platform allows users to withdraw money for free on certain dates, incentivizing savings and eliminating the temptation to withdraw
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ARED, which leases a solar-powered mobile kiosk that charges cell phones. The company franchisees have the opportunity to run local kiosks for free
We've also done research on the investing landscape in Africa: our recent report Breaking the Patternanalyzes how implicit bias causes investors to miss opportunities in African fintech.
About our next program
We are excited to launch theVillage Capital Fintech Africa 2018program in collaboration with PayPal.
We're recruiting a cohort of 10-12 early-stage fintech startups to go through a three-month investment-readiness program, early next year. We're recruiting from Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda.
Specifically, we’re looking for startups that address insurtech, pensions and savings, cooperative finance, and financial literacy; leverage data for credit scoring and consumer insights; and apply fintech to our other sectors of interest: agriculture, energy, education, and health.
More information can be foundhere.