Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://onforb.es/1WN1Akz. Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwitunes or on Stitcher by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwstitcher. As I’ve been covering social entrepreneurship and impact investing for the past several years here, I’ve watched and come to know Village Capital as one of the real leaders in social entrepreneurship. Their peer-selected investment model is unique among the accelerators and incubators I’ve covered. Last week, Village Capital announced the formation of VilCap Communities, an effort to radically expand the peer-selected model. Ross Baird, Executive Director, is on a mission. Last week, he published a piece that was highly critical of the Silicon Valley model for venture finance. Afterward, he told me, “The way we fund new ideas today is broken–we send billions of dollars to a few people in a few well-off cities, who fund people they know and who are in their networks. As a result, 78% of venture capital is distributed to just three states – California, Massachusetts and New York – and only 5% goes to women founders, and less than 3% to people of color. And the people solving problems in society don’t have lived experience with most of the problems they are trying to solve.” Village Capital’s innovation is the principle of peer selection. When they bring a cohort of entrepreneurs into their programs, those entrepreneurs ultimately decide who gets the money. The Village Capital team serves only to facilitate training and collaboration. ”Village Capital’s peer selected investment model changes the power dynamic between people with ideas and people with capital. It’s no longer well-resourced people sitting under fluorescent lights who don’t understand the problems they are trying to solve deciding who gets a shot; instead, entrepreneurs everywhere can get opportunity, if they can convince their peers,” Baird says. Having been invited to watch the process first hand, it is interesting to see entrepreneurs compete and collaborate in an environment where their peers will ultimately decide their investment fate. “Peer selected investment upends the power dynamics of traditional early-stage venture capital, by placing investment decisions in the hands of entrepreneurs (Village Capital provides the first funding in two-thirds of investments). The process also democratizes venture capital by making capital more accessible to anyone solving major global problems, no matter their race, ethnicity, zip code or background,” he adds. Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://onforb.es/1WN1Akz. Please consider whether a friend or colleague might benefit from this piece and, if so, share it.
#388: Village Capital Works To Scale Social Ventures - Here's How