Expanding Our Global Collaboration with PayPal

In 2017–18, we’ll continue our work with PayPal, running FinTech investment-readiness programs in the US, Latin America, India and for the first time — sub-Saharan Africa

For the past three years, we’ve collaborated with PayPal to support entrepreneurs around the world that are working on improving financial health. Today, I’m thrilled to announce that we’re continuing and expanding that collaboration and we’re kicking off our 2017–2018 schedule with a summer program for American entrepreneurs.

Read more about our announcement below, including the list of ventures in our FinTech US: 2017 class!

Village Capital and PayPal (Nasdaq:PYPL) today announced an expansion of their global collaboration to support entrepreneurs focused on financial health in several countries, including, for the first time, sub-Saharan African. The companies also announced the twelve American entrepreneurs that have been selected to participate in the FinTech: US 2017 program.

Together with the support of local ecosystem partners, Village Capital and PayPal will operate four investment-readiness programs in the next two years, supporting more than 40 emerging FinTech innovators across the US, Latin America, India and sub-Saharan Africa.

At the end of each program, participating entrepreneurs will evaluate each other across six indicators of investment readiness and direct up to $100,000 of investment capital provided by this program to each of the top two peer-selected entrepreneurs.

“At the heart of PayPal’s mission is our commitment to democratize financial services and help improve the financial health of families and small businesses around the world. Through this collaboration, we are supporting Village Capital’s global efforts to inspire and support social impact entrepreneurs who are addressing financial health challenges by developing community-based solutions that assist those that are currently underserved by the global economic system,” shared Franz Paasche, Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs, PayPal Inc.

“Our partnership with PayPal has added tremendous value to entrepreneurs participating in our programs, thanks to the company’s intrinsic values and focus on improving the financial health of global citizens. Entrepreneurs who have joined our programs have benefited hugely from the expertise of their incredibly talented team,” said Village Capital President Ross Baird. “We’re delighted to expand this partnership across all of our core geographies, now including Africa, and we can’t wait to see the solutions the entrepreneurs develop that address current market challenges.”

In the US, the first program this year will be Village Capital: Fintech US 2017, for entrepreneurs creating accessible, efficient, and affordable financial services for underserved communities and small businesses. The workshops will take place this summer in Detroit, New York City and San Francisco. The full class for FinTech US: 2017 will include:

• BlueCheck provides identity and age verification services for e-commerce platforms.
• CNote delivers savings alternatives 40X better than traditional banks with 100% social impact.
• Finix Payments offers a B2B payments platform for banks, acquirers, and enterprises to enable push payments over debit card.
• Hugo Insurance is the world’s first pay-when-you drive liability car insurance, for people who rely on their car but can’t afford big premiums.
• Jumpstart Insurance Solutions is a first-of-its kind resource that quickly gets money in people’s hands when they need it most — after a natural disaster.
• LendStand provides innovative working capital solutions for public projects.
• Medxoom makes healthcare payments simple via a modern, mobile-first payments platform.
• MyStrongHome makes homes and families more resilient to hurricanes and extreme weather, by combining construction upgrades with insurance-based finance.
• PayKii Inc. enables people living abroad to pay expenses for their families back home by connecting remittance companies and financial institutions.
• Sagents auto-verifies minority- and women-owned business (MWBE) status, tracks corporate spend, and measures economic impact with MWBEs.
• Stackfolio is the online marketplace for loan trading, powered by a data research platform.
• token introduces the safest way to pay for anything, everywhere, making fraud a thing of the past for consumers and merchants.

PayPal employees have been involved as mentors on Village Capital programs since 2014, contributing to the success of more than 70 businesses that have gone on to serve more than 31,000 companies and raise more than $28 million in investment. PayPal has funded four of these programs, including a program in India in 2015 and programs in the US, Mexico and India in 2016.

Allie Burns is Managing Director of Village Capital. Learn more about Village Capital on our website or Medium page.