Fighting climate change and preserving the planet through the Subscription Economy.
In fiscal year 2022, we formed a partnership with Village Capital, which is the most active supporter of impact-driven, seed-stage entrepreneurs in the world. For more than a decade, Village Capital has been reinventing the system to back the entrepreneurs of the future and address the gaps that currently exist in the innovation economy:
- Less than 30% of global VC funding goes outside three US major tech hubs (CA, NY, MA)
- Less than 14% of VC funding goes to startups led by mixed-gender teams
- Less than 3% of VC funding goes to startups led by Black or Latinx teams
- Impact investing only makes up 2% of global assets under management
Village Capital’s focus on supporting founders from underrepresented backgrounds with lived experiences, coupled with their unique peer-selected investment process, is bringing more people and perspectives into the global engine of entrepreneurship. Simultaneously, entrepreneurship has become a critical tool for solving the climate crisis.
In recent years, startups from across the country have been finding new and innovative ways to tackle climate change and preserve our planet. Many of these startups are part of the Subscription Economy® and are leveraging customer-focused recurring revenue business models that help democratize access to climate-related solutions.
In fiscal year 2022, we granted Village Capital US $409,000 to launch Sustainability Subscribed, a program that will support startups from across the country who are focused on four interconnected sectors that contribute substantially to climate change: Agriculture & Food Systems, Energy, Transportation, or Housing and Buildings, and are working on solutions focused on:
- Reducing greenhouse gas emissions
- Expanding access to clean energy
- Enhancing the resilience and sustainability of food and water systems
- Bolstering a circular economy through the reduction of waste and regeneration of materials
- Providing analytical insights used to accelerate sustainability and mitigate climate change
The selected startups will go through an intensive 4-month accelerator program that is laser-focused on investment-readiness. At the end of the program, the entrepreneurs will assess each other’s companies in an open and transparent process and the two startups ranked highest by their peers will receive grant funding from Zuora. Our ZEOs are involved as Advisory Board members, mentors, and workshop leaders.
