Are you passionate about how entrepreneurship can solve important problems in the world? Village Capital, a grant-supported 501(c)(3), is the largest organization in the world supporting seed-stage, impact-driven startups. Since 2009, we’ve supported more than 1,200 entrepreneurs by tailoring programs to their needs and connecting them with investors that match their vision, and have facilitated more than 100 investments through our affiliated funds.
Village Capital’s Family of Funds team is the impact investing arm of the organization that catalyzes investment into early stage impact-driven startups. The Family of Funds approach includes:
- Direct Investments: We facilitate investments into impactful early stage startups through our direct investment strategy and asset management and advisory work with mission aligned organizations, which includes managing investment vehicles on their behalf.
- Affiliated-Investor Network: We drive value to our network of impact-aligned affiliated investors, providing value-added support, including access to customers, talent, and finance to their portfolio.
- Innovative Approaches: We innovate in the early stage investing space, pushing beyond the status quo to test investment methodologies and structures that can address systemic barriers and capital gaps.
Ideal Candidate:
Village Capital is seeking a Senior Manager, Investments to play a critical role in helping us build a best in class investment team. As a member of the Family of Funds team, this position will facilitate investments through our direct and supported fund strategies. Here is what we are looking for:
- You are curious and passionate about entrepreneurs. You have investment experience, preferably with early-stage companies, and you are comfortable in many different contexts. You believe in the possibility of entrepreneurship to change the world.
- You are a self-starter and an insatiable learner. You stay ahead of industry trends. You find yourself reading, thinking, and talking about entrepreneurship and early-stage investing. You will have a lot of freedom to shape this role but that will require a high level of energy and interest in the work.
- You have an investment thesis. You’re obsessed with emerging startups, ways of forecasting founder success, and scenarios that might yield a positive return for investors. You look at a startup and think of ways that it might succeed, why it might fail, and how you could plug in and provide support.
- You understand fiduciary responsibility. You have had investment experience, ideally at the early-stage, and understand the professional responsibility that comes with managing other people’s capital.
- You are proficient in financial modeling. You know your way around Excel and have modeled early stage businesses before.
- You are independent, motivated, and comfortable with ambiguity and managing others in a small team setting. You thrive with a ton of responsibility.
- You are a natural connector. You will spend a lot of your time talking with entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial support organizations, and investors. One of your greatest value adds to entrepreneurs will be the people you can connect them with – investors, stakeholders, potential customers.
- You are detail-oriented and professional. You hate typos, can easily manage deadlines and prioritize your time, and take your own professional credibility seriously.
Key Responsibilities
The Senior Manager, Investments will report to the Head, Family of Funds, and have the following key responsibilities:
Investment Process: You’ll lead the process of making direct investments into early stage entrepreneurs, aligned with Village Capital and partner objectives and strategy, creating and implementing a repeatable and scalable process, including:
- Sourcing, Screening and Due Diligence: You will lead the due diligence of prospective investments, in coordination with Village Capital’s Global Ventures team, including evaluating early-stage companies for investment, building financial models to support investment analysis and recommendations, conducting financial and impact due diligence, drafting of investment memorandums and other due diligence documentation to inform investment decisions.
- Closing Investments: You will lead the closing of approved investments, including finalizing terms sheets, engaging in limited negotiation of terms with prospects, and finalizing transactions.
- Exit Strategy: You will lead the process of designing and structuring exits, aligned with the overall portfolio and investment strategy.
- Portfolio Monitoring and Support: You will monitor the portfolio to support return of capital and startup growth, actively monitoring and maintaining relationships with existing investments, including conducting needs assessments and helping craft strategic growth and fundraising plans with portfolio companies.
Account Management: You will manage investment vehicles on behalf of Village Capital and/or partners, committing to the behind the scenes infrastructure building and detail-oriented works that go into managing projects and partners.
- Project Management: You will leverage project management principles in developing, standardizing, and improving the process for managing investment vehicles and programs, including coordinating with multiple stakeholders and managing timelines and budgets.
- Partner Engagement: In accordance with Village Capital’s standards of operation, you will lead engagement with investment partners, integrating partner objectives in investment frameworks and processes, regularly coordinated with partners based on interests, and contribute to on-going reporting by communicating with portfolio companies, monitoring and verifying financial and impact performance, and drafting written material for regular updates.
Leadership and Management: You will supervise junior members of the investment team, providing guidance and feedback to support their professional development and growth.
- Investment Team Professional Development: Working closely with the Family of Funds and broader leadership team, you will support the professional development of the investment team and help grow the investment expertise across the organization.
Family of Funds Strategy: Working closely with the Family of Funds team, you will contribute to Village Capital’s family of funds strategy, including:
- Investment Vehicles: You will work closely with Village Capital leadership to finalize the design of any funds and program, leveraging the organization’s existing assets and networks – including our Abaca platform and our network of VilCap Communities around the world.
- Partnership Development and Strategy: You will work with the Family of Funds leadership to Identify and engage new strategic partners with support from our core partnerships team. Partners may include large corporations, philanthropies, investors, government agencies and other organizations aligned with the mission and intent of our programming.
Qualifications
- Bachelor degree or higher;
- 4+ years of professional experience, preferably including at least 2 years of experience with early-stage companies and investment structures, which may include work in impact investing, venture capital, private equity, investment banking or combination of related experience and skill-sets;
- Proficient in financial modeling, including experience modeling early stage businesses;
- At least one year of investment transaction experience, which may include drafting investment memorandums, terms sheets, closing documents, or combination thereof;
- Proven project management capabilities, including ability to be both strategic and consistently execute on work plans;
- Strong attention to detail, organization, and follow-through;
- Excellent communication and relationship building skills with an ability to prioritize, negotiate and work with a variety of internal and external stakeholders, including a level of comfort comfortable presenting audiences of start-up CEOs, negotiating term sheets, and concisely supporting your point of view;
- Ability to flourish with minimal guidance, be proactive, and handle uncertainty and ambiguity;
- Comfort with a fast-paced environment and changing requirements;
- Passionate about working with impact oriented entrepreneurs.
- Ability and eagerness to travel domestically and internationally up to 25%
Benefits
- Team culture that values experimentation, innovation, and creating a sense of belonging for all team members.
- Fulfilling, mission-driven purpose, including the opportunity to work with entrepreneurs around the world.
- Evolving hybrid work model, accommodating remote and/or office (depending on location) preferences.
- Annual salary $90k – $110k, based on experience and track record.
- Annual performance bonus program.
- Generous holiday and flexible paid time off policy.
- Benefits package including medical, dental, vision, 401k and more.
- Annual $1,500 professional development reimbursement program.
If interested, please apply here.
