Village Capital, with support from the World Education Services (WES) Mariam Assefa Fund, today launched an accelerator program for startups creating inclusive solutions for immigrants, refugees, and communities of color disproportionately impacted by climate change in the United States.
Washington, DC (May 18, 2023) – Today, Village Capital announced an investment in Let’s Get Set from its Financial Health Innovation Fund (FHIF), an early-stage investment vehicle funded by MetLife Foundation. Volunteers of America (VOA) joined the round via its Futures Fund, a social impact investment fund that supports the scaling of high-impact health, housing and social service models as joint-venture partnerships with community health entrepreneurs. Let’s Get Set, launched in 2020 and based in San Francisco, California, helps families earning less than USD $75,000 create a path to enhanced financial stability via unrealized tax credits.
Millions of low-income Americans miss out on an estimated $12B in tax credits annually, which, if claimed, could significantly improve their financial future. New mothers in particular are often unaware that they may be eligible for tax credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit or they may make mistakes when filing taxes and miss out on these critical credits.
Let’s Get Set helps low-income Americans navigate the tax filing process by providing personalized guidance through a free web app and help line. Users get a tax refund estimate and then they’re offered a cost effective way to file their taxes through the app. For the 2022 tax year, Let’s Get Set users received an average refund of $2,901.
Village Capital got to know Let’s Get Set during Village Capital’s FinHealth US 2021 accelerator program. As a part of the program, Let’s Get Set’s founder, Clare Herceg, connected with other financial health-focused startup founders and with mentors to help strengthen their business model and prepare for investment. “The FinHealth program was an incredible opportunity to build deep relationships with other founders who shared a passion for advancing financial health,” said Clare Herceg, CEO and Founder of Let’s Get Set. “The peer feedback component of the program was particularly useful because we were able to leverage the expertise of fellow founders and learn how they’d overcome similar challenges ranging from go-to-market strategy (GTM) to business model.”
“We are impressed by Clare as a founder and her vision for Let’s Get Set,” said Heather Matranga, VP of Impact Investments at Village Capital. “As an impact-driven investor, we recognize the substantial positive impact that Let's Get Set has already made for low-income families, and are thrilled to partner with them to scale and deepen that impact with new offerings and support.”
“Clare was a standout founder in our Community Health Incubator’s inaugural cohort, sponsored by the Humana Foundation. We were able to facilitate pilots with VOA Texas and VOA Greater New York to help clients in those markets improve their financial independence,” said Stephen Samuels, VP of Innovation & Impact Investing at Volunteers of America. “In addition to the capacity-building grant and months of coaching, the VOA Futures Fund is thrilled to make its first $150,000 SAFE Note investment in Let’s Get Set to help them scale up for greater impact and client engagement.”
The Financial Health Innovation Fund is a Village Capital managed fund that is part of the organization’s Impact Investment work which helps capital providers invest with impact through customized, hands-on investment support.
For more information, reach out to Meredith Storton at Village Capital (meredith.storton@vilcap.com) and David Burch at Volunteers of America (dburch@voa.org).
About Village Capital
Village Capital is reinventing the system to back the entrepreneurs of the future. Known for its groundbreaking approaches to supporting founders who are building solutions to emergent social, economic, and environmental challenges, VilCap unlocks critical social and financial capital for early-stage companies to maximize business and impact growth.
Village Capital has operated in the US since 2009 by running over 45 accelerator programs. VilCap has supported more than 897 startups from over 43 states and 23 entrepreneur support organizations (ESO) working in sectors such as financial health, health equity, justice tech, and sustainability. Learn more at www.vilcap.com and follow @villagecapital.
About Volunteers of America’s Futures Fund
Launched in 2018 as a subsidiary of Volunteers of America Inc. (VOA), the Futures Fund is a social impact investment fund that supports the development and expansion of high impact health, housing and social service models and enterprises within VOA and as joint-venture partnerships with external community health entrepreneurs. Over $3 million has been invested in the key areas of workforce development, healthcare access, food security and economic stability. VOA is one of the largest and most experienced non-profit housing, health and human service organizations in the United States. Celebrating over 126 years of service, its federated network of VOA affiliates impact nearly 2 million lives each year in over 400 communities, including D.C. and Puerto Rico. In addition to its hundreds of programs, VOA owns and manages nearly 23,000 units of affordable housing and over 15 senior healthcare facilities. Learn more at www.voa.org. Media Relations: David Burch, Sr. Director, Communications, dburch@voa.org.
