• Since the pandemic, Village Capital Latin America expanded its programs to respond to the health and housing crises. This year, they will also support ventures that impact malnutrition.
• The global organization is working to expand access to its platform Abaca for Spanish-speaking entrepreneurs. Abaca helps entrepreneurs evaluate if their business is ready to receive investment, access financing options, and connect with potential investors.
Mexico City (May 3rd, 2021) — Since the pandemic, Village Capital Latin America expanded its programs to respond to the health and housing crises. This year, they will also support ventures that impact malnutrition.
Village Capital, the largest organization in the world supporting impact-driven, seed-stage startups, announces that it will expand its programs in Latin America to support startups that contribute to sustainable development.
"At Village Capital Latin America, we work everyday to support the entrepreneurs of the future,” said Daniel Cossío, Regional Lead for Village Capital Latin America. "The challenges increased as a result of the pandemic, and it has become crucial to create programs that respond to the crises that we currently are facing."
Last year, Village Capital developed a virtual program with MetLife Foundation Mexico to support Mexican startups working to prevent and treat diseases such as obesity and overweight, diabetes, and hypertension. They also partnered with Habitat for Humanity’s Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter to launch the ShelterTech Andean region accelerator, supporting and accelerating startups that address the challenges of affordable housing. ShelterTech is the world’s leading platform for affordable housing innovation.
At the beginning of this year, Village Capital joined forces with IREX to train alumni of the U.S. Department of State's Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative (YLAI) Fellowship Program. They are currently working with entrepreneurs that solve education and health challenges, among others, from countries around the region including Argentina, Curaçao, Jamaica, and Haiti.
They have recently launched a new program with Visa Foundation to support Latin American entrepreneurs who develop scalable solutions in the agritech and foodtech sectors, such as supporting farmers, preventing food waste, and reducing malnutrition. Applications are open until May 14th here.
Village Capital, distinguished by “democratizing entrepreneurship,” executes revolutionary innovations to shape entrepreneurs’ future. Among them, its peer-selection methodology, a unique model to shift decision-making power away from “expert” investors and give that power to groups of peer entrepreneurs. And their platform Abaca, that helps companies benchmark and track their investment-readiness process.
“Among our main added values, apart from not taking equity nor charging a fee to participate in our programs, is our peer-selection methodology which allows entrepreneurs to put themselves in the investors’ shoes and evaluate the development of both their projects and those of their peers,” explained Cossío.
Village Capital motivates entrepreneurs to regularly consult its programs webpage and to apply to their agritech and foodtech program at this link. Experts who wish to be mentors in one of their programs can register here.