Venture Café is a nonprofit organization that hosts community events and programs that support early-stage entrepreneurs.
[1] As of May 2020, there are 11 independently managed Venture Cafés, located in Boston, St. Louis, Missouri; Miami; Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Providence, Rhode Island; Tokyo, Japan; Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Warsaw, Poland; Bilbao, Spain; and Sydney, Australia.
[3] The flagship event of Venture Café is the Thursday Gathering, a weekly meeting for new and experienced entrepreneurs to exchange ideas and support.
[5] The idea failed to attract investment, so the founders changed it to a gathering space for the entrepreneurial community, based on the book Venture Café by Teresa Esser.
[12] On September 13, 2021, Venture Café St. Louis board chair Whitney Masching released a statement stating, "Seven years later, it is time to close this chapter.