The Lisk EMpower Fund targets post-incubation Web3 startups in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, bridging the capital gap and unlocking outsized returns in regions where Web3 adoption is already mainstream.
Lisk, the growth platform designed for Web3 founders in high-growth markets, today announced the launch of the Lisk EMpower Fund, a $15 million venture initiative aimed at backing Web3 startups solving real-world problems in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. In addition to the launch of the Lisk EMpower fund, Lisk is excited to announce four early recipients: Lov. cash, a South African digital supply chain platform, Afrikabal, an African Agritech platform, IDRX, an Indonesian stablecoin, and SigraFi, who finances small gold producers and issues gold-backed on-chain loan notes.
While developed markets often see competitive and dense VC activity and higher valuations, the Lisk EMpower Fund is hyper-focused on emerging markets where adoption is organic, purpose-driven, and transformative. To date, VCs are overlooking a $5.2 trillion opportunity in emerging markets, where small-to-medium-sized businesses remain underfunded.
High-growth markets offer significant growth opportunities, leveraging emerging technology to develop innovative solutions that solve local challenges that otherwise could not be solved by traditional technology. Many founders bootstrap to Series-A level traction without ever raising institutional seed capital. Yet, a knowledge gap remains in the opportunities to invest in these regions.
Emerging markets have consistently outperformed public benchmarks, delivering 9-11% annualized venture returns over the past 10-15 years, according to Cambridge Associates. Lisk believes this marks the start of a generational bull run in emerging markets, driven by unprecedented innovation and the rapid adoption of transformative technologies. In contrast, U.S. seed-stage venture has become oversaturated, with record-high early-stage valuations and near-zero three-year returns. This creates an opportunity to back high-growth founders in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia at fair valuations, while generating uncorrelated, venture-scale returns.
The Lisk EMpower Fund model integrates incubation, assessment, and growth capital through a scalable, end-to-end pipeline designed to accelerate high-potential ventures.
- Web3-Native: Dedicated capital for infrastructure and applications solving real-problems in payments, remittances, identity, and supply chain.
- Emerging Markets: Targeting regions that are ripe for organic adoption and have the potential to scale globally.
- Hands-on Advisory: Beyond capital, Lisk operates as a boutique investment bank for startups, supporting founders in refining their narratives, structuring for international fundraising, and securing proper Series A and B rounds.
- Tokenized Fund Structure: The Lisk EMpower Fund utilizes tokenization to streamline LP subscriptions, provide secondary market liquidity, and open access to retail LPs, who are traditionally excluded from venture funds.
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