Mercy Corps Ventures (MCV), the impact investing arm of Mercy Corps, has announced its offering upto $1 million in grant funding to startups (up to $100,000 each) looking to pilot scalable blockchain solutions that can drive financial inclusion. The fund targets startups in frontier and emerging economies in Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Pacific Islands, and Western Balkans.
Dubbed Crypto For Good Fund, MCV says they aim to close the ‘hype gap’ by catalyzing real world use cases for financially underserved populations.
Mercy Corps Ventures believes that the hype of blockchain for underbanked populations has not yet been matched by the reality in emerging markets.
“While some real world use cases exist, most lack the measurable outcomes to build a business and impact case for these technologies.” MCV said in a statement.
The fund seeks to back startups leveraging on blockchain and crypto to address the unique challenges faced by smallholder farmers, communities in remote areas, refugees, informal workers, microentrepreneurs, and unemployed youth.
“Our newly launched Crypto for Good Fund aims to drive global financial inclusion through a series of pilots in partnership with up to ten startups, building an evidence base to prove the scalability of blockchain-enabled solutions in emerging markets.” reads the release in part.
The fund is targeting startups building innovative digital financial solutions for the underbanked with massive potential to reach scale using blockchain-powered solutions such as tokens, NFTs, digital wallets, lending protocols, digital ID, DAOs, smart contracts, and more.
How To Apply
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. The deadline for application is on 15th April 2022.
More information on Mercy Corps Ventures Crypto For Good Fund can be found in the below;
