Mercy Corps Ventures, the impact investing arm of Mercy Corps, has just launched their Crypto For Good Fund. The objective of the Fund is to drive global financial inclusion through a series of pilots, building an evidence base to prove the scalability of blockchain-enabled solutions in making a positive impact on the 1.7 billion people in the world who are currently unbanked.
Mercy Corps Ventures invests in and fuels high-impact enterprises working in frontier markets, from seed to scale. As part of our focus on financial resilience, MCV works with partners to responsibly pilot new financial products and services tailored to un/underbanked and low-income populations.
Mercy Corps Ventures (MCV) is looking for startups, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and social enterprises in Africa, South and SouthEast Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Pacific Islands, and Western Balkans, who innovatively apply decentralized finance (DeFi) and blockchain technology to build financial inclusion solutions for un/underbanked and low-income users.
The Fund will provide an equity-free grant of between $25,000 and $100,000 to ten eligible startups, to run their pilot over a six month period in 2022.
Alongside capital MCV will provide mentorship, impact measurement advisory, access to partnership opportunities, knowledge exchange, and visibility via their communications channels.
Solutions can include, but are not limited to:
- Coins / Tokens
- NFTs
- Digital wallets
- Lending protocols
- Digital ID
- DAOs
- Smart contracts
Deadline: 15 April 2022
Click here to know more about the grant and to apply
