Village Capital

Village Capital was founded in 2009 by Ross Baird and Bob Patillo as an experiment in rethinking how venture capital allocates money. The core idea was simple and radical: what if founders, not investors, decided which startups received funding? That question became the peer-selected investment model, where cohort members evaluate each other's businesses through structured due diligence and rank who should receive capital. The organization started as a pilot of First Light Ventures (an affiliate of Gray Matters Capital), ran its first program in New Orleans with IDEA Village, and has since grown into a global operation spanning 40+ countries with $17M+ invested directly into 116 early-stage startups whose portfolio companies have collectively raised over $1B in follow-on funding.

In Africa specifically, Village Capital operates through two main channels. The Empowering Sustainable Entrepreneurship (ESE) program, backed by Norad (the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation), runs across Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania, targeting climate adaptation, food security, renewable energy, and blue economy startups. The Africa Ecosystem Catalysts Facility (AECF), a $4M fund backed by FMO (Dutch Entrepreneurial Development Bank) and the Netherlands Enterprise Agency, deploys capital through five locally based Entrepreneur Support Organizations in Ghana, Nigeria, and Tanzania. Both programs reflect Village Capital's "context-first" philosophy, where local partners who understand market realities help identify and evaluate startups rather than investors making decisions from Washington, DC.

The organization is now led by CEO Ellen Brooks, who took over from long-serving CEO Allie Burns in September 2025. Brooks brings 15+ years in innovative finance from the International Rescue Committee and J.P. Morgan's Private Banking division, and she is steering the organization toward deeper ecosystem-building work alongside direct investment.

Board Chair: Michal Eynon-Lynch