Main Landing Page
W Venture is a personalized 3-month program for entrepreneurial women seeking to grow their business. You will receive a curated experience with hands on individualized support, subject matter expertise and a peer community of ambitious women. Applications open now through July 29th, 2022.
W Venture Is For You If:
You are an entrepreneurial woman in BC (Ideally in the Okanagan or Victoria).
You have an innovative, tech-enabled product or service in-market and want to move your business forward.
You want to grow your business.
How It Works:
Core Components:
- Together, we will build a personalized plan to help you acquire the skills you need to advance. All based on your goals, experience, and stage of your company. We create your unique roadmap, identifying what skills, knowledge and support systems will help you on your entrepreneurial journey.
- Wouldn't it be nice to have some help? W Venture is committed to helping you work through the obstacles holding you back from success. Together we will identify a major challenge that you are currently facing and partner you with the right subject matter expert (SME) to help solve that challenge.
- Advance your knowledge base and hard skills in core business areas such as Strategy, Finance, Sales, Digital Marketing and Growth Capital delivered by world-class professionals who are dedicated to your success. All in a format that lets you choose what you need to learn, when you need to learn it.
- Grow professionally and personally with an experienced female mentor matched to your needs. Our peer accountability group will help you stay on track and can relate to your challenges. Additional W Venture community gatherings connect you to a province-wide network of like-minded entrepreneurial women.
Why We Built This:
Women are founding more businesses than ever before with 3 times the rate of male entrepreneurs since 1976 (BDC report). However, female entrepreneurs are underrepresented making up only 28% of the entrepreneurial population and highly underfunded with only 2.2% (Pitchbook) of venture dollars going to female led companies. The gap is significant.
Yet time and research has shown us that female led businesses are not just a “nice to have,” but a vital force for a vibrant economy, a trillion dollar opportunity we can not let pass (HBR).
Women led companies have higher ROI, are more likely to introduce radical new innovations into the market, and outperform their male counterparts consistently.
W Venture seeks to close the gap and help women entrepreneurs succeed and our communities to thrive.
The Fine Print:
The Commitment: W Venture is a three month pilot. The program will start early September 2022. Participants will need to allocate approximately 6-8 hours per week, in which you will be a mix of bi-weekly mentor meetings, project work with a subject matter expert, curated workshops, monthly peer group, and optional community gatherings.
The Fees: $300 per month*
*Program fees are in review and should not prevent any eligible entrepreneur from applying. Subsidies are available for University of Victoria entrepreneurs.
This program will be offered virtually to allow for accessibility for entrepreneurs located throughout British Columbia.
