diff --git a/pex/tools/commands/README.venv.md b/pex/tools/commands/README.venv.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..c3f4155dc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pex/tools/commands/README.venv.md
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+The [Venv](venv.py) command uses the [virtualenv](https://github.com/pypa/virtualenv) project to
+suppport creating Python 2.7 virtual environments (The Python `venv` stdlib module was added only
+in Python 3).
+
+We use the last virtualenv version to support Python 2.7, embedding it as the
+[virtualenv_16.7.10_py](virtualenv_16.7.10_py) resource via the
+[embed_virtualenv.sh](/scripts/embed_virtualenv.sh) script.
+
diff --git a/scripts/embed_virtualenv.sh b/scripts/embed_virtualenv.sh
new file mode 100755
index 000000000..52dc2a6e0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/embed_virtualenv.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+
+VIRTUALENV_16_7_10_RELEASE_SHA=941d218accf5e8b5672b3c528a73f7d5e2aa18bb
+
+cd $(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)
+
+curl --fail -L \
+  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pypa/virtualenv/${VIRTUALENV_16_7_10_RELEASE_SHA}/virtualenv.py \
+  > pex/tools/commands/virtualenv_16.7.10_py
+
diff --git a/tox.ini b/tox.ini
index f2336d593..9327a566c 100644
--- a/tox.ini
+++ b/tox.ini
@@ -181,6 +181,7 @@ deps =
   tox
 commands =
   tox -e vendor
+  bash scripts/embed_virtualenv.sh
   git diff --exit-code
 
 [testenv:docs]