Investment Analyst

About Village Capital

Village Capital is reinventing the system to back the entrepreneurs of the future. Known for its groundbreaking approaches to supporting founders who are building solutions to emergent environmental, social, and economic challenges, VilCap unlocks critical social and financial capital for early-stage startups to maximize business and impact growth.

Since 2009, Village Capital has supported close to 1,800 startups that have raised USD 7.5B in investment capital. It has made more than 150 investments through its various affiliated funds, including Vilcap Investments, which has invested in 110 peer-selected companies. Additionally, more than 25,500 users actively engage on Abaca, their web app that equips entrepreneurs, ESOs, and capital providers with tools for learning about, assessing suitability and expanding access to financial capital. Its latest feature, Capital Explorer, helps founders identify the most appropriate funding options for their businesses.

Candidate Profile

Village Capital is seeking an Investment Analyst based in either Kenya or India to support high-potential start-ups tackling real-world problems - particularly in underinvested regions, sectors and communities.

About

You’re a curious, entrepreneurial, and mission-aligned individual who’s passionate about tech-enabled startups and early-stage investing. You think deeply about impact, innovation and are excited to build relationships that unlock new opportunities for women founders in Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East and North Africa and South Asia regions. Here’s what we’re looking for:

• You are a self-starter and a lifelong 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 impact and return for investors. You are particularly interested in how entrepreneurs can solve some of the most important problems of our day.
• You’re interested in working with the next generation of entrepreneurs: You look at a startup and think of ways that it might succeed, why it might fail, and how you could plug in to provide support.
• 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.
  
  

Role Overview

You’ll be a key member of the Global Ventures and Women in Tech (WiT) program team at Village Capital, supporting a multi-year strategic partnership with Standard Chartered Foundation across 10 countries in Africa, MENA, and South Asia. This role, is a full-time, fixed-term role for 3 years.

In this role, you’ll co-facilitate workshops, offer 1:1 support to women-led, tech-enabled startups, and support implementing partners as they deliver investment readiness training. You’ll also help surface learnings around the types of capital most needed by women founders and contribute to the ongoing evolution of VilCap’s curriculum and tools. Your three specific responsibilities are:

• Direct Entrepreneur Support
• You will facilitate group sessions on financial health, investment readiness, and capital strategy for WiT program participants.
• You will provide tailored 1:1 support to women entrepreneurs across 10 markets on revenue models, unit economics, pricing strategy, and funding approaches.
• You will help participants articulate their business growth plans and capital needs using VilCap tools like Capital Explorer and Abaca.
• Pipeline and Insights
• You will participate in final selection of women in tech participants to ensure alignment with program target profile.
• You’ll personally develop relationships with the most promising entrepreneurs as a relationship lead on behalf of Village Capital.
• You will analyze and report on the financial needs and capital-readiness of WiT participants to inform broader ecosystem learnings.
• You will contribute to research questions around catalytic capital use, gender lens investing, and effective capacity-building strategies.
• You will be working with VilCap Impact Investments team toidentify potential deal flow for future financing facilities.
• Program Support
• You will network with and recruit industry experts, investors, and entrepreneurs to join as program mentors and advisors
• You will support the program logistics, facilitation and execution including of entrepreneur annual Alumni events.
• You’ll support the Program Manager with program management and deliverables.
• You will collaborate with local Implementing Partners to adapt curriculum and programming to each market's context.
• You will support Implementing Partners by acting as a co-facilitator during entrepreneur-facing training, particularly on financial topics.
• You will help collect, analyze, and synthesize feedback and insights to inform improvements across the multi-year partnership
• You will advise Village Capital’s programming strategy and recruitment with an eye towards market opportunities, corporate innovation trends and investment trends.
  
  

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Economics, Business, or other relevant field.
• Deep understanding of the start-up and investment landscape in SSA and MENA
• 3-5 years of professional experience.
• Experience with Financial Analysis and Modeling, ideally with early-stage companies.
• Experience supporting due diligence, pipeline tracking, or evaluating investment opportunities
• Strong interest in impact-driven startups
• Comfortable with digital tools for managing pipelines, data analysis and CRM platforms
• Exceptional written and verbal communications.
• Comfort with cold external outreach with entrepreneurs and other external stakeholders.
• Fluency in Excel, PowerPoint, and other tools to both analyze and promote companies.