Sponsors and Partners of the CFA Incubator:
The Conservation Finance Alliance (CFA) Incubator Launches its 3rd Round!
Call for Proposals Deadline - Feb 20, 2025
The 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. Download the Informational Flyer!
If for some reason you can't use the Google Form, please download the following forms' alternative versions and send them together with any attachment to incubator@cfalliance.org.
The third round of this virtual incubator will identify and support ten projects, with five of them receiving grants of up to 25,000 USD. Incubation support will include a combination of promotion, technical support, group learning, and mentorship from CFA members and staff. The third round of the CFA Incubator will run over 2025 with financial support from the Nature Transformation Fund run by Milkywire, in collaboration with Klarna.
The CFA Incubator is focused on innovative finance – not simply conservation enterprises!
The CFA Incubator supports a wide range of innovation in conservation finance, including conservation finance ventures that can generate a financial return and conservation finance concepts that lead to policy, regulatory, or non-profit finance solutions. All projects that enter the Incubator must be innovative approaches to conservation challenges that use finance or economic tools to create clear conservation outcomes or sustained conservation financing. Concepts can be from any sector (public, private, etc.) and can include ideas generated directly by CFA members, partner organizations, and independent organizations and entrepreneurs. Projects may or may not seek to return a profit yet must return long-term financing or clear conservation impact. Solutions can be designed as independent companies, financial products, or other mechanisms. Submissions can also include policy or regulatory innovations that create enabling conditions for profitable conservation investments, including such ideas as new regulatory markets. All accepted Incubator proponents will participate in an intensive training program and mentorship support.
The focus of the CFA Incubator is “idea” and “early-stage” projects. Strong candidates for these solutions are entrepreneurs or non-profits willing to invest their time and their own money to succeed. Desired outputs for the incubation period might include the preparation of a business plan, financial model, an investors’ deck, a completed feasibility study, an implementation guide or outside financing.
The application process for the CFA Incubator will take place over two concurrent windows, the Concept Feedback Window and the Open Call for Proposals.
The Concept Feedback Window is designed to provide rapid feedback and refinement of initial ideas and is available to any proponent who submits a short concept via this link. Once short concept applications are received (open until January 24) the CFA will provide either written feedback or will offer a brief discussion session (30 mins). Written feedback and discussions will occur on a rolling basis through February 12th. The Feedback Window seeks to generate stronger full proposals.
Full proposals are sought during the entire Open Call for Proposals and can be submitted without passing through the feedback process, via this link. The closing date for full proposals is February 20th, 2025.
The CFA Incubator Technical Review Committee will assess all full proposals and choose the top 10 projects for grants (5) and mentorship (all 10). The successful projects will be announced in mid-March 2025.
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.
CFA INCUBATOR Timeline:
Concept Feedback Window
Applications: Now - January 24th, 2025
Feedback period: Rolling until February 12th
Open Call for Proposals Applications: Now through February 20th, 2025
Cohort Announced: March 2025
Incubation Period: April-November 2025
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-Paribas, and others. The previous CFA Incubator cohort members are listed below!
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Questions?
Email questions or partnership inquiries to incubator@cfalliance.org.
Questions?
Please send a message to incubator@cfalliance.org
Informational Webinars
Don't miss the informational webinars on January and February.
