Mexico City (April 1, 2024) – Village Capital, in partnership with Posner Foundation of Pittsburgh, is launching a call for applications for the “Reshaping Consumer Behavior in LatAm 2024” accelerator program. This marks the second iteration of the program dedicated to supporting entrepreneurs across Latin America to decrease food waste, by supporting startups focused on empowering and informing consumers, improving food center processes, and reducing loss risk in production and distribution.
Global food waste – valued at USD 940 billion annually – harms farmers and raises consumer prices. This waste doubles greenhouse gas emissions, impacting sustainability across land, energy, labor, and capital. Moreover, in 2022, 60.6% of the population in Latin America and the Caribbean experienced food insecurity due to poor infrastructure and logistics, leading to an annual average of 223 kg of food waste per person. Our accelerator program aims to support startups addressing these issues in Latin America.
Applications close on May 31. Full details and eligibility criteria can be found here.
From July to October 2024, the ten selected startups will work closely with industry experts, investors, and ecosystem partners in two online workshops and one in-person summit. They will also have access to a period of technical assistance that will provide resources, such as paid consultants. A founder/C-suite member of each selected startup will travel with all expenses included to Mexico City to interact with one of the biggest ecosystems of the region.
All the startups that complete the program will receive USD 4K each, from Posner Foundation to further scale their solutions. All startups that apply to the program will be invited to join Abaca, Village Capital’s free web app. Abaca includes Capital Explorer, which equips entrepreneurs to make strategic fundraising decisions that align with their mission and vision and identify relevant resources and capital providers. Abaca also helps entrepreneurs on a venture path to assess their investment readiness using a consistent set of Venture Investment Levels (1-9) and then plan and track progress toward their next level with the Milestone Planner.
For more information, reach out to Yireth Villaverde at Village Capital (yireth.villaverde@vilcap.com).
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 Latin America since 2015 by running over 20 accelerator programs involving more than 20 countries in the region including Bolivia, Guatemala, and Paraguay. VilCap has supported more than 200 locally-based startups working in sectors such as economic mobility, financial health, and sustainable agriculture. Learn more at www.vilcap.com and follow @vilcap_latam.
About Posner Foundation of Pittsburgh
The Posner Foundation of Pittsburgh invests in organizations locally, nationally, and across the globe. Through five priority areas, Environment, Human Rights, Education, Jewish Life, and Civil Society, the foundation seeks high-leverage opportunities to advance long-term structural solutions to social, economic, and environmental challenges.
In 2021, the Posner Foundation established a strategic plan to guide and assess funding efforts in food waste, with emphasis on prevention solutions. The foundation envisions a waste-free food system that prioritizes efficient use of human, financial, and natural resources. In early 2022, the Posner Foundation released its first ever open call for proposals to bolster their food waste grantmaking, and now, the foundation supports a Food Waste Prevention Cohort of 14 grantee organizations working on a variety of projects to prevent food waste through reshaping consumer environments.