Mercy Corps Ventures and Polygon partner to advance blockchain solutions in emerging markets like Africa – BitcoinKE
Mercy Corps Ventures (MCV), the impact investment arm of the global development organization, Mercy Corps, has announced a partnership with Polygon Labs, a leading player in the blockchain space.
The partnership aims to accelerate blockchain solutions for underserved and low-income individuals and communities in emerging markets.
Happy to share more about our new collaboration with @0xPolygon!
Together we will drive:
👉blockchain pilots
👉hackathons with developers serving new market users
👉educational blockchain roadshows pic.twitter.com/D69Xyhp3n0— Mercy Corps Ventures (@MCSocialVenture) March 3, 2023
Mercy Corps Ventures invests in and catalyzes venture-led solutions to help underserved groups join the global economy. Since its founding in 2015, MCV has supported 41 early-stage ventures to scale and raise over $333.9 million in follow-on capital, the organization says.
In addition, the MCV portfolio is 51% female-founded and centers around resilience-building solutions within adaptive agriculture and food systems, frontier fintech and climate-smart systems.
The partnership with Polygon Labs will focus on three main pillars:
- Funding blockchain pilots that will provide access to the financial system for traditionally excluded and underserved communities
- A series of blockchain hackathons with developers serving emerging market users to increase education and awareness of how blockchain can help solve local challenges in the area of impact
- Run a blockchain bootcamp roadshow in markets where Mercy Corps has a presence with the aim of providing education and information sessions for local educational institutions, NGOs and other organizations looking to improve their operations through blockchain technology
The partnership also comes at a time when the hype of blockchain and Web3 solutions for underbanked populations has yet to be matched by the reality in emerging markets. While some real-world use cases exist, most lack measurable results to build a business and impact case for these technologies.
MCV has actively piloted Web3 solutions to responsibly test, de-risk and build the evidence base for promising, breakthrough innovation. These solutions leverage Web3 to explore nascent areas of the thesis, building resilience for underserved individuals and communities.
Crypto for Good Fund II, launched by MCV in February 2023, is expected to drive global financial inclusion and climate resilience through a series of pilots, building an evidence base to prove the scalability of blockchain-enabled solutions to positively impact growth. markets.
“We know that startups bring new, innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges,” says Scott Onder, CEO of Mercy Corps Ventures.
“We want to support founders to scale these nascent solutions by providing strategic support and funding to test, validate and accelerate their work to onboard the next generation of users in emerging markets.”
The Polygon network is home to tens of thousands of decentralized applications, including some of the most prominent DeFi players such as Aave, QuickSwap, OpenSea and Uniswap V3.
See also
________________________________
Follow us on Twitter for the latest posts and updates
Join and interact with our Telegram community
________________________________
________________________________
