Venture Guidelines

Most ventures on our platform are early stage and require investments between USD $10K and USD $5 million. These guidelines explain VC4A’s focus. Ventures that do not comply with these guidelines will be moderated. Thanks for reading.

For business ventures only.

A VC4A venture is a for-profit entity that must be beyond the concept phase and have a working prototype, product, or service. Ventures must be beyond the concept phase and have a working prototype, product or service. We look for ventures that are disruptive in their business model, are scalable and offer innovative solutions.

Ventures must fit VC4A’s sectors.

We currently support ventures that focus on the sectors of Agriculture, Banking, Technology, Software, Consumer Goods, Energy, Financial Services, Food & Beverages, Health Services, Manufacturing, Mobile, Media, Retail, Telecommunications, Transportation, Utilities and Waste & Recycling. Thirty percent (30%) of the ventures on VC4A have some form of social mission and could be qualified as a social enterprise. All of them are for-profit companies.

Prohibited uses:

• No charity or cause funding.
  Examples of prohibited use include raising money to fund an awareness campaign, funding a scholarship, or promoting the donation of funds raised, or future profits, to a charity, non-profit organization, foundation or cause.
• No “fund my life” or lifestyle type ventures.
  Examples include projects to pay tuition or bills, go on vacation, or buy personal items.
• No ventures claiming to cure, treat, or prevent an illness or condition.
  Examples include nutritional supplements, devices, apps, books or other means.
• No ventures in the extractive resource industries.
  Examples include oil and gas, minerals and mining, precious metals/gems, palm oil cultivation and timber or forest products.
• No ventures that seek to profit from exploitation of wildlife, livestock or other farmed animals.
  Examples include the harvest and/or sale of wild animals for food, clothing, pets, medicine, sport or other purposes. Farmed animals include cattle, pigs, rabbits, chickens and other animals raised for human consumption.
• No ventures that offer loan or lending schemes of any kind.
  Examples include payday loans, short-term loans, group lending/savings schemes and IOUs.
• No ventures that promote gambling, high yield investment programs (HYIP) or guarantee little or no risk and high returns.
  Examples include pyramid schemes, promissory note schemes, gambling/betting platforms, forex and/or commodities brokerages and related “risk-free” high yield investment offers.
• No faith-based ventures or other religious organizations.
  Examples include online communities, churches, social groups or associations connected with religious groups.

Community Guidelines

We rely on respectful interactions between our members to ensure that the VC4A community remains healthy. Please follow the rules below.

• Promote your venture but don’t spam.
  Activity streams in programs are designed to foster conversations. Please don’t spam these pages with your pitch or links to your venture. Your venture profile is the best place to post updates.
• Don’t promote your venture on other members’ pages.
  Your comments will be moderated and your account may be suspended.
• Be courteous and respectful.
  Don’t harass or abuse other members.
• Don’t post obscene, hateful, or objectionable content.
  If you do we will remove it and your account will be suspended.
• Don’t post copyrighted content without permission.
  Only post content that you have the rights to.

Actions that violate these rules or our Terms of Use may lead to an account being suspended or deleted. We’d prefer not to do that.