The UNICEF Venture Fund is looking to make up to US$100K in equity-free investments to provide early-stage (seed) funding to for-profit start-ups

Finance May 11, 2023

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The following criteria will be used:

Relevance of solution for children and young people, problem-solution fit and potential for application at global scale
Novelty of project and alignment with Innovation Principles
Suitability of the team and key personnel to implement the project
Project budget and financing

The UNICEF Venture Fund is looking to make up to US$100K in equity-free investments to provide early-stage (seed) funding to for-profit start-ups

The UNICEF Venture Fund is looking to make up to US$100K in equity-free investments to provide early-stage (seed) funding to for-profit start-ups developing frontier technology solutions that can positively impact the lives of the world’s most vulnerable children and youth. If your product is registered in one of UNICEF’s programme countries, is a working prototype, has demonstrated results, and is (or could be) open-source licensed, we encourage you to apply.

Who can submit an Expression of Interest to the UNICEF Innovation Fund

Projects are assessed by UNICEF Innovation Fund team and recommended for funding to the internal board. Companies need to fulfill the following mandatory requirements to be considered for funding:

Registered as a private company
Registered in a UNICEF programme country (see list here)
Working on open source technology solutions (or willing to be open source) under the following licenses or their equivalent:
(i) for software, a BSD license,
(ii) for hardware, a CERN license and
(iii) a CC-BY license for design or content, a CC-BY license
An existing prototype of the open source solution with promising results from initial pilots
Solution has the potential to positively impact the lives of the most vulnerable children
Generating publicly exposed real-time data that is measurable

Please review the additional information for the Request for Expression of Interest here.

Click here to visit the official website: UNICEF Venture Fund