Lisk, a leading Web3 infrastructure project, has unveiled the Lisk EMpower Fund, a $15 million venture initiative aimed at supporting early-stage startups across Africa, Latin America (LATAM), and Southeast Asia. The fund is designed to unlock opportunities in regions often overlooked by traditional venture capital, offering both financial backing and strategic support to founders building in high-growth but underfunded markets.
The EMpower Fund represents a deliberate pivot away from the saturated venture landscapes of Europe and North America. Instead, Lisk is targeting what it calls “frontier economies”, regions with high adoption rates of digital financial technologies but limited access to institutional capital.
The fund will provide up to $250,000 per startup, along with hands-on advisory services covering:
- Regulatory compliance
- Tokenisation strategies
- Fundraising preparation
- Go-to-market execution
The goal is to help startups become Series A-ready, reducing risk for future investors while accelerating growth for resilient, bootstrapped founders.
Gideon Greaves, Head of Investments at Lisk, commented:
Founders in Africa, LATAM, and Southeast Asia are already proving they can build products with real adoption despite limited access to venture dollars. Where Western VCs see ‘risk,’ we see mispriced opportunity. These markets aren’t unstable, they’re undercapitalized, misunderstood, and scaling faster than the West.
Lisk has already made its first four investments, showcasing a diverse portfolio focused on financial infrastructure and asset-backed innovation:
- Lov.cash (South Africa) – A digital supply chain platform streamlining logistics and payments.
- Afrikabal (Rwanda) – An agritech startup optimizing agricultural supply chains and market access.
- IDRX (Indonesia) – A stablecoin issuer pegged to the Indonesian Rupiah, enabling localised digital payments.
- SigraFi – A lending platform backed by physical gold, offering secure, asset-based credit.
Afrikabal CEO Oghenetejiri Jesse praised the fund’s holistic approach:
The Lisk EMpower Fund gave us capital, credibility, and community. It transformed Afrikabal from a local pilot into a global infrastructure contender.
In a bold move to align its operations with Web3 principles, Lisk has tokenized the EMpower Fund’s limited partner (LP) shares. This structure introduces potential liquidity to an asset class traditionally known for long lock-up periods, often 10 years or more.
Greaves explained the rationale:
Tokenization doesn’t create new risk, it digitizes an old, clunky process. The token is directly tied to a real fund share, so it’s not speculative. It’s simply a better wrapper. If VCs truly believe in Web3, they should prove it by adopting it themselves.
This innovation could open the door for smaller investors to participate in venture capital and may enable secondary market trading of LP stakes in the future, offering flexibility and liquidity rarely seen in traditional VC structures.
While the $15 million fund may seem modest by global standards, its strategy is sharp and disruptive. By focusing on startups that have already achieved traction with minimal capital, Lisk is de-risking its investments while betting on resilient founders in fast-scaling markets.
The most groundbreaking element, however, is the tokenization of the fund itself. This isn’t just a symbolic gesture, it’s a challenge to the legacy model of venture capital. By using Web3 tools to solve Web2 problems, Lisk is pioneering a new approach to fund management that could reshape how capital is deployed and accessed.
Whether this model attracts a new class of LPs who value liquidity as much as long-term returns remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: Lisk is not just investing in startups, it’s investing in the future of venture capital itself.
