Sponsors and Partners of the CFA Incubator:
The Conservation Finance Alliance (CFA) Incubator seeks to identify, support and promote innovative ideas and solutions to conservation finance challenges that have significant positive conservation impacts. Innovation is essential to identify and develop conservation finance solutions and is especially urgent given the Global Biodiversity Framework targets and the explosion of interest in sustainable finance for nature.
The CFA Incubator is a recurring program of the CFA and has run two rounds supporting over 22 projects or companies through a combination of finance, technical support, and mentorship. Past CFA Incubator partners have included Conservation International Ventures, Mirova, BNP-Parisbas, and others. Past CFA Incubator cohort members are listed below! The third round of the CFA Incubator will run during 2025 with financial support from the Nature Transformation Fund run by Milkywire, in collaboration with Klarna.
A two phase call for proposals will be launched in January. During the first phase, proponents are invited to provide a brief description of their concept and can request a discussion session with the CFA to refine the idea. The CFA staff providing guidance are not part of the technical review committee (TRC) that will be assessing and scoring the projects. Projects will be selected based on a set of criteria to be shared during the call for proposals. The second phase will be for the full proposal submissions expected before the end of February 2025. Mentorship will be provided by the CFA Secretariat and CFA Members. If you are interested in being a mentor for this CFA Incubator Cohort, please fill out this form.
The 3rd cohort will run over nine months during 2025 and various public presentations will be made as the projects progress. Incubated projects and companies receive mentorship from the CFA Incubator co-leads, Dr. David Meyers and Ben Guillon, as well as mentorship and targeted expertise from the CFA Incubator Manager, CFA members and partners. This round of Incubation is financially supported by the MAVA Foundation with technical support from our partners.
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Previous Winners
CFA Incubator Round 2 Projects - 2022
Seven finalists were accepted into the second cohort of the CFA Incubator, following a competitive open call that generated 73 impactful conservation finance concepts. The CFA Incubator’s Technical Review Committee reviewed all proposals and chose seven projects for the Round 2 cohort. Five of the seven proponents also received a grant of USD 20,000 to support their initiatives.
Incubation and Financial Support
Blue Recovery Bond - Planet Tracker – Reversing financial incentives for overfishing.
Microfinance for Community Conservation - WWF and Kiva – collaborating to bring microfinance to conservation enterprises in the Amazon and beyond.
Mwenzi Capital - Conservation Capital – Blended finance mechanism for sharing profits in nature-based enterprises in Africa.
Ocean Eye – Tourism platform facilitating micro payments to coastal communities based on wildlife sightings.
Ng’wala Inventions – Designing and operating digital solar-powered organic pesticide and fertilizer dispensing machines for rural farmers in Africa.
Incubation
Decentralized Finance “DeFi” Registries in Water Quality Markets - Ecomarket Services, AQAIX, and i2 Capital - transforming water quality markets using blockchain technology.
Nature 4 Climate Fund - Natural Strategies Investments - Bridging commercial interests and long-term sustainable solutions by effectively connecting capital with conservation.
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CFA Incubator Round 1 Projects - 2020-2021
Image: Matt Curnock
The first round of the Conservation Finance Alliance Incubator ran from Spring 2020 to Spring 2021. Five (5) projects were selected to receive mentoring and grant funding of 25,000 USD each. Funding was provided by MAVA. An additional ten (10) projects received mentoring only, for a total of fifteen (15) projects. Projects presented their work to the CFA and potential investors at the end of their mentoring process.
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Mentors and Partners
The CFA Incubator builds its mentorship roster from the CFA’s Innovation Working Group. If you are interested in becoming a mentor for selected projects or partner with the CFA Incubator, please fill out This FORM.
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Questions?
Please send a message to incubator@cfalliance.org
