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Tech Startups

Mercy Corps Announces $1M Fund To Test Blockchain Solutions For Financial Inclusion

TECHDIGEST – Mercy Corps, a global humanitarian organisation, has launched a new Crypto for Good Fund of $1 million to test and support blockchain-based solutions for people who are currently low-income and/or unbanked.

“We are excited to partner with visionary founding teams to identify, test and prove the potential of crypto and web3 to improve financial access for the 1.7 billion people in the world who are currently unbanked,” says Scott Onder, senior managing director of Mercy Corps Ventures. “Our aim is to validate use-cases and accelerate the development of solutions that drive positive impact for users in emerging markets.”

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Benefits

The Fund will provide an equity-free grant of between $25,000 and $100,000 to ten eligible startups, to run their pilot over six months in 2022.

Alongside capital, Mercy Corps Ventures will provide mentorship, impact measurement advisory, access to partnership opportunities, knowledge exchange, and visibility via their communications channels.

Eligibility

Pilot projects should utilise decentralised finance and blockchain technology to improve access to financial services and other livelihood improvements for low-income communities in frontier and emerging economies.

  • Applicants must be early-stage startups leveraging blockchain to deliver financial inclusion solutions to low-income and/or un/underbanked users
    Applicants must have active users and commercial revenue
  • Applicants must be an entity registered and operating in the country of the pilot. Pilots can operate in Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Pacific Islands, Eastern Europe or Western Balkans
  • Mercy Corps Ventures is particularly interested in supporting entrepreneurs local to the market in which they’re operating, as well as female founders and applicants with representation of women at all levels of the organisation and/or solutions that reach an extensive female-user base.

Solutions can include but are not limited to Coins/Tokens, NFTs, Digital wallets, Lending protocols, Digital ID, DAOs, Smart contracts and others.

How to apply

Apply to participate in the Mercy Corps Venture Fund. Application deadline is on Friday, April 15, 2022.

 
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