I love the idea of reinventing venture capital. Here are some great examples:
- Patagonia’s venture capital fund: invests in environmentally and socially responsible start-up companies, providing long-term, patient capital. I highly recommend reading Let My People Go Surfing by founder Yvon Chouinard.
- Y Combinator: invests small sums at the seed stage, but in large batches of startups, with hands-on mentoring. They were the first investors in AirBnB, Dropbox, Stripe, Coinbase, Reddit, and 1800+ more.
- Venture Kick: Switzerland’s largest startup accelerator program. Get up to 150’000 CHF for your project.
- indie.vc: 50% of the companies they’ve backed are led by female founders & the vast majority of them are based outside of the Bay Area or NYC
- Tiny: they start, buy, and invest in wonderful internet businesses
Know other examples? Let me know on Twitter.