Welcome to Vicinity Ventures — the joint venture between VentureSouth and Vicinity

Vicinity Partnership

This year, VentureSouth is partnering with Vicinity Capital, a “Regulation CF” portal based in Greenville. The partnership covers a new technology platform, expands the range and variety of investment opportunities available to VentureSouth members, and improves the experience of being a member.

You can review the slides we discussed at the Summit announcing the partnership and at this link, and enjoy this announcement video.

Technology Platform

Step one of the partnership is a reporting platform to replace Venture360.

The platform is available for you to use! Please click here to start the process for accessing the platform.

It is currently in beta release, and we’ll be building out additional functionality in the coming weeks, but we encourage you to log in.

Once logged in, you should see available your portfolio, including the amounts you invested, proceeds and distributions, current operating status, and the “book value” of each investment. You can also explore the marketplace to find current VentureSouth open rounds (with blue borders) and other available Vicinity opportunities. Soon you’ll be able to sort and filter according to your preferences.

Please explore the initial functionality, and let us know if you see any issues with your data. As the platform evolves, we invite your feedback on improving the contents and user experience.

Investment Opportunities

We will continue to offer VentureSouth members the curated southeastern, early-stage, technology-based investments that we always have. These are marked in blue with the VentureSouth logo in the marketplace.

With the Vicinity partnership, we now also offer a wider set of investment opportunities. You should already be able to access the “community-focused” investments available in the Vicinity marketplace. If those look interesting, you can participate (typically on preferential terms for VentureSouth members) directly inside the platform.

Second, we plan to add a wider set of curated and diligenced “alternative investments”, including in operational businesses, micro private equity and credit, and real estate developments. The goal is to make “Vicinity Ventures” the platform for local “alternative investing.”

The expanded team will be working this year to add “local” investment opportunities in our hometown markets. We would love for you to help with that, to further increase the volume of “home-town” investment options, and would appreciate your referrals or ideas.

Member Experience

Alongside the tech platform and broader deal flow, we intend to use the platform to improve your member experience. Improvements over time include:

  • Easier filtering for deals that meet your preferences;

  • Smoother workflow for Indicating interest, completing investment paperwork, funding capital calls, and receiving distributions all within the platform; 

  • Receiving portfolio update reports, tax documentation, and other reports more frequently inside the platform.

What is NOT changing

The partnership with Vicinity brings an expanded team to implement these deals and improvements. We do not intend to change how VentureSouth “works”. We will continue to do the best diligence work we can, on the most attractive early stage companies we can find in the southeast, under our continuing mission to Make Money. Have Fun. Do Good.

We are doing all this without changing the VentureSouth fee schedule in any way.  Our investment structure (using a Delaware Series LLC) remains unchanged in “VentureSouth” deals. The core team of Matt, Paul, Charlie, Alex, Caroline, Mallory, and our interns and supporters remain engaged - reinforced by the Vicinity team (Josh, Wilson, John, and Shane).

And, on a more prosaic note, K-1s will be uploaded this tax season to both Venture360 and Vicinity to ensure coverage - but next year we will use Vicinity exclusively.

To Wrap Up

If you made it this far, thank you! We hope this partnership and our strategic improvements this year continue to improve your experience as a VentureSouth member, and we look forward to continuing working with you. If you have any questions or concerns, please call or email us any time.