This EDA investment funds the village to venture: EDA build to scale venture challenge project, a partnership between southwestern community college, the university of SAN diego, and the connect…

This EDA investment funds the village to venture: EDA build to scale venture challenge project, a partnership between southwestern community college, the university of SAN diego, and the connect foundation that will leverage the SAN diego region's innovation ecosystem to support female, veteran, and bipoc entrepreneurs in accessing traditional capital sources and creating new jobs. The project will support 6 main focus areas through its programming. The program aims to leverage its social capital network - the village - of the innovation ecosystem to serve as the "friends and family" to underrepresented founders, use current technology platforms to maximize sales and more fully achieve revenue and capital potential, nurture relationships with institutional investors (VCS, angel, seed, fund managers) that support diverse innovation ecosystems, ensure "inclusion at the start" by providing supportive technical support and resources, and build on local/state efforts that support early-stage entrepreneurs and continuing to help those entrepreneurs solidify traction and move toward growth and job creation. Village to venture will also coordinate educational events, partnerships, technical assistance and mentorship to access a broad community of advisors, resources and investors so that new entrepreneurs are included in SAN diego's thriving innovation ecosystem. Once implemented, the program expects to counsel 300 entrepreneurs, train 200 entrepreneurs, provide over 1500 total hours of counseling/technical assistance, create 5 new investor relationships and 30 new investor introductions, and host 10 training events.