EDCO Ventures : Texas-based Venture Development Organization

What We Do

Headquartered in Austin, Texas, EDCO Ventures is focused on commercializing technologies and innovative business ideas, acting as a catalyst for venture development and growth capital. EDCO Ventures uses a hybrid of non-profit and for-profit business model to sustain the organization’s mission over time, and to deliver best in class services to low-income communities.

What We Do

EDCO Ventures

EDCO Ventures is a venture development organization that partners with universities, government laboratories, risk capital groups, and private individuals to discover and commercialize technologies and innovative business ideas. EDCO’s goals are to create innovative companies and thereby increase living wage jobs in economically distressed areas of Texas. EDCO is a 501©(3) economic development non-profit organization.

Social Impact

EDCO Ventures is passionate in its social mission as a Community Development Corporation. EDCO Ventures’ work requires maneuvering between the public and private sector, and our success is founded on job creation, living wages, shared prosperity and mechanisms that alleviate income inequality in our society.

Beyond economic development, the companies created by EDCO Ventures help impoverished regions retain and attract its “talent pool.” We help slow the outflow of individuals that, until now, are forced to seek opportunities in other regions that match their skills and desire for self-expression. Companies we incubate accomplish this by creating jobs in industries such as Green Energy, Web 2.0, Bio Tech and Nano Tech.

Our companies will spawn community heroes that inspire entrepreneurship, education and local investments transforming regions into attractive centers for technology and business commercialization.

The Need

Income inequality in the United States is growing, the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer. The gap has widened over the last 30 years and this is accompanied by a decline in the middle class. As income inequality at the individual level grows the income gap between communities/regions will also continue to widen. This disparity is best attributed to the lack of wealth creating enterprises in economically distressed areas. If distressed areas are to improve their per capita income, they must foster creation of innovative locally headquartered enterprises. These market-leading companies that generate high profit margins share their wealth with employees and the community as a whole.