Our Partnership with Village Capital


In 2019, Travelers launched a partnership with Village Capital to provide resources to entrepreneur support organizations (ESOs) in locations throughout the United States. Village Capital is the largest organization in the world supporting impact-driven, seed-stage startups. Since 2009, the Village Capital team has directly worked with more than 1,100 entrepreneurs in 28 countries, and its affiliated fund, VilCap Investments, has invested in 110 startups that have gone on to raise more than $4 billion in follow-on capital. In 2020, Travelers expanded its partnership with Village Capital through Resource, a nationwide project to support and connect ESOs led by and focused on entrepreneurs of color. The project is co-led by Village Capital and the Black Innovation Alliance and has a goal to create a stronger entrepreneurial infrastructure for founders of color through educational and financial resources and network building.
As part of this partnership, which is an extension of the Small Business Risk Education program, Travelers employees have served as mentors and panelists for virtual workshops that are focused on operations, investment readiness and strategic planning. Since launching, 23 ESOs led by Black, Indigenous and Latinx founders from across the country have participated in Resource.
Community Benefits
- Small businesses are an important economic engine, and Travelers’ support helps communities remain vital by providing financial and intellectual capital.
Travelers Benefits
- By interacting with a variety of small businesses and small business incubators, Travelers has a line of sight into emerging trends and risks that can help inform its product development and risk control protocols.
- Travelers’ advocacy for small business is on display through support of this partnership, improving awareness and enhancing the brand reputation of our company among potential future customers.