“Public service potential of private capital,” Chinese social ventures, and charity fundraising — notes from Jia Ji

PSVP partner Jia Ji sends us some information on social ventures in which he’s involved:

As some of you might know, my latest startup was accepted for GoodCompany Ventures last summer (http://www.goodcompanyventures.org/companies/couchange/) and this year’s program will start accepting applications soon. If you know anyone working on a socially-beneficial startup, I would strongly recommend considering the program. As far as I know, it’s still the only y-combinator style incubator focused on social entrepreneurs.

GoodCompany Ventures is organizing a series of events about the “public service potential of private capital” in various cities over the next few months. I’m back the US for a few weeks, and had the chance to speak at their first event in New York City (http://gcvpanel.eventbrite.com/ ). Here’s a recap of my experience: http://www.goodcompanyventures.org/recap-of-nyc-launch/. Pictures are also up, but no video yet. I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly they were able to sellout the event, but that’s probably due to high-profile speakers such as Fred Wilson and Jacqueline Novogratz. Given the success of similar events in Pittsburgh like “Solutions for Society”, I think there’s potential in bringing a GCV event to the city, so if there’s interest in hosting such an event, please let me know.

Finally, since people have sent me questions about social ventures in China, I’d like to point out Chengdu MeiHuan Tech (http://www.huania.com <http://www.huania.com/> ) as a good example of a Chinese social venture. Founded just after the devastating 2008 Sichuan earthquake, they provide low cost earthquake alarms to schools and are developing earthquake prediction technology that can be utilized worldwide. Unfortunately, since VCs are relatively rare in central China (as compared to coastal cities) and social VCs basically non-existent, examples like MeiHuan Tech are actually pretty rare. Which is why I’ve been exploring the feasibility of running y-combinator and GoodCompany style incubator programs in various cities throughout China. If you’re interested in more specific details rather than this brief overview, I’ll be presenting my findings as I travel throughout the northeastern US over the next few weeks, so just send me an email about it.

Finally, I’m in Pittsburgh now and will be giving a public talk tomorrow about “Charity Fundraising in Social Games.” Just posted about it (along with brief summaries of my previous talks) at http://edeify.com/2010/03/24/2009-reviewed/.