Mercy Corps Ventures Crypto for Good Fund (Round 3)

The high-level objective remains unchanged: fund impactful real world web3 use cases to drive global financial inclusion and climate resilience across emerging markets. The ambition remains focused on building an evidence base to prove the scalability of blockchain-enabled solutions in making a positive impact in emerging markets.

With 15 web3 pilots launched to-date, they aim to continue pushing the frontiers of innovation to identify the highest-potential, highest-impact initiatives in the cryptoverse.

C4G3’s Focus

• This edition of the Fund will be focused on the next frontier of crypto innovation. They’re looking for builders who are pushing the boundaries to improve the lives and livelihoods of underserved users across the emerging markets.
• Priority themes include, but are not limited to:
  • DePIN — how can they improve financing for critical climate-smart infrastructure?
  • Humanitarian aid delivery — how can they better serve the 299M people in need of aid?
  • Ramps — how can they onboard more people to financial freedom?
  • RWA / asset tokenization — how can tokenized assets improve livelihoods?
  • ReFi — how can they promote and restore the environment alongside financial gains?
• Mercy Corps Ventures (MCV) is looking for startups and organizations operating in Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Pacific Islands, and Western Balkans who innovatively apply Web3 and blockchain technology to build solutions for underserved populations.
• The Fund will provide equity-free grants of up to $100,000 to ten eligible startups. Alongside capital, MCV will also provide mentorship, impact measurement advisory, access to partnership opportunities, knowledge exchange, and brand exposure.

Eligibility

To be eligible to apply, applicants must meet the following criteria:

• Be a startup or organization leveraging, or looking to leverage, blockchain to deliver financial inclusion and climate resilience solutions to underserved users in at least one eligible country.
• Have active users and revenue in at least one eligible country.
• Be an entity registered and operating in the country of pilot implementation (whether domestic or internationally-owned or a joint venture). In cases where responsibility for service delivery lies with a downstream partner, rather than the applicant, it may be acceptable for the applicant to be registered in a country other than that of pilot implementation.
• Be fully compliant with relevant business licensing, taxation, employee and other regulations in all applicable countries of grant pilot operation.
• Be registered and have a bank account in the country where they will receive the grant money (if not the same as the pilot implementation country).
• Be an eligible entity and demonstrate that a majority of their income is derived from commercial activities. Early-stage companies who have not reached this threshold will need to demonstrate a reliable path to sustainability via commercial activities that generate revenue to be considered.
• The applicant (startup) must commit significant resources to demonstrate commitment and signal the strategic importance of the pilot opportunity. This should include skin-in-the-game through financial resources and/or management resources.
• Only one organization can apply for funding and become a pilot delivery partner. Applicants are encouraged to have downstream partners to support implementation. In the case of government entities being grant pilot partners, they cannot be a sub-recipient of the grant.

Criteria

They particularly encourage the following applicants to apply:

• Female founders, and applicants with representation of women at all levels of the organization.
• Entrepreneurs local to the market in which they’re operating, and applicants with representation of local talent at all levels of the organization.
• Applicants who have partnerships with relevant local stakeholders (e.g. community-based organizations) to deliver the pilot directly to users/participants.
• Applicants who demonstrate that their user base is over 50% female.
• Applicants who have a clear understanding of how their solution improves financial inclusion of low-income and/or un/underbanked communities and have proactively taken steps to set targets and systematically measure these impacts.

For more information, visit Mercy Corps Ventures.