Social ventures

Social entrepreneurs around the world are harnessing novel business models to fuel widespread social change. By linking profit with purpose, they are creating solutions with the potential to scale and solve entrenched development challenges. But these ambitious innovators are often undercapitalized and don’t have access to the resources they need for their ventures to first survive and then thrive.

Our impact investing arm, Mercy Corps Ventures (MCV), partners with these pioneers to iterate and scale bold solutions to the world’s toughest challenges. Beyond investing the right kind of capital — which includes equity, convertible debt, and blended finance — MCV provides advice, technical support, and connections across Mercy Corps’ global network of corporate partners, governments, civil society, and the private sector. MCV is one of the most active early-stage investors in frontier markets, taking on early risk to be the catalytic capital that bridges the gap between entrepreneurs and capital markets. We believe social entrepreneurs are critical players in building resilience of people and communities.

MCV is the founder of FinX, an initiative designed to reimagine the financial system with the world’s most vulnerable at the center of its design. FinX’s goal is to accelerate global financial inclusion by advancing innovative, responsible distributed ledgers, digital assets, cryptocurrencies, and other digital financial solutions that help people join the global economy and lift themselves out of poverty and create a roadmap for an inclusive financial system.

MCV also managed the Innovation Investment Alliance, a funding collaborative between USAID’s Global Development Lab and the Skoll Foundation that granted over $50m to eight, proven social enterprises and generates the Scaling Pathways series with insights on how to scale social impact.