not-for-profit
(9)
Virgin StartUp lends money. The useful part comes after.
A personal loan can buy equipment. Virgin StartUp pairs it with people who can help you decide what to do next - and is rethinking who gets through the door.
Maria 01 turned a hospital into a shortcut for startups
In Helsinki, an old hospital puts founders down the hall from venture capital. Maria 01’s real business is making the right people easier to find - with desks, introductions and a €2,000 accelerator among its tools.
FinTech Australia: The startup that gave startups a voice
FinTech Australia launched with less than two months of cash. A decade later, its 400-plus members have a shared voice in Canberra - and a fresh test of whether better rules can produce better finance.
Lhasa Limited gets drug rivals to share their safety secrets
The Leeds software charity turns chemical knowledge into tools for spotting hazards. Its unusual advantage is persuading competing companies to learn from one another’s experiments.
A Five-Year-Old University Is Trying to Make the Business Degree Prove Itself
International Business University has gone from 11 graduates to nearly 700 in two years. Its wager is simple: a young school can earn trust faster if every course leaves evidence an employer can understand.
The Little Fund That Turned $44 Million Into a $1.15 Billion Habit
It started as a modest state bet on Rhode Island's innovation economy. Twenty-five years and 144 companies later, Slater is the quiet engine underneath the state's startup scene - and it keeps recycling its wins.
VSP Vision
VSP Vision is the largest not-for-profit vision benefits and eye care company in the United States, founded in 1955 by a group of Northern California optometrists who pioneered the idea of prepaid vision insurance. Headquartered in Rancho Cordova, California, VSP now operates a vertically integrated portfolio spanning vision insurance, eyewear brands (Marchon, Altair, Marcolin), lens technology (VSP Optics), retail (Visionworks, Eyeconic), and practice-management software (Eyefinity). Backed by roughly 85 million members and a network of tens of thousands of independent eye doctors, the company frames its mission as empowering human potential through sight, and funds one of the industry's largest charitable arms, VSP Eyes of Hope.
AAA Mountain West Group
AAA Mountain West Group is the not-for-profit auto club formerly known as AAA Northern California, Nevada & Utah. Headquartered in Walnut Creek, California, it serves AAA members across seven western states - Northern California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Montana, Wyoming and Alaska - with roadside assistance, insurance, travel planning, financial services and discounts. Rooted in a 1900 gathering of motoring enthusiasts in San Francisco, it is one of the largest clubs in the national AAA federation.
El Camino Health
El Camino Health is a not-for-profit healthcare system that has served Silicon Valley and the South Bay for more than 60 years. Born from a 1950s community vote and a tax that residents levied on themselves, it runs two acute care hospitals in Mountain View and Los Gatos plus roughly two dozen care locations across Santa Clara County. With 471 beds, about 4,480 employees and 1,585 physicians, it blends a community-rooted mission with the technology-forward instincts of the valley it sits in.