The Overlooked Venture Capital Advantage In Emerging Markets

Episode notes

Venture capital looks very different when it’s built inside a humanitarian organization and deployed in emerging markets where rules are informal, capital is constrained, and systems function very differently than in developed economies. In this episode, my guest is Timothy Rann, Managing Partner of Mercy Corps Ventures. He leads what may be the only venture capital fund in the world to have been built inside a humanitarian NGO. When the fund was created, Mercy Corps was a roughly $600 million-a-year organization operating in more than 40 countries facing conflict, climate stress, or both. Tim explains how working in frontier markets reshaped his understanding of social impact, from navigating informal supply chains in conflict zones to understanding why venture building inside NGOs often breaks down. In this episode we cover: Why Mercy Corps Ventures pivoted from venture building to investing How financial resilience and climate adaptation fit a market-rate investment strategy What a Kabul fruit vendor taught Timothy about functioning markets This conversation strips away theory and shows what venture capital really looks like on the ground.

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