In this episode, my guest is Timothy Rann, Managing Partner of Mercy Corps Ventures. He leads what is likely the only venture capital fund in the world to have emerged from within a humanitarian NGO. When the fund was first created, Mercy Corps itself was a $600 million-a-year organization working in more than 40 conflict and climate-stressed countries.

After years of building businesses in fragile markets such as Cambodia, Vietnam, and Afghanistan, he and his wife moved to Jakarta, where he was recruited to help launch what became Mercy Corps Ventures. The original idea was to create “the equivalent of Google X inside a nonprofit.”

But that venture-building model proved too expensive. Tim and his team pivoted and convinced the board to let them invest directly in startups serving the Global South.

From those beginnings, Mercy Corps Ventures has scaled into a family of four funds with more than 60 portfolio companies across Africa, Latin America, and Asia.

• Their first fund was evergreen, seeded by family offices and corporates, later joined by institutions like USAID and Proparco. It’s already produced a unicorn and multiple exits.
• The second fund, now aiming for $50 million, focuses on climate adaptation and resilience.
• The third fund is the Venture Lab. It puts small grants behind frontier ideas – everything from anticipatory cash transfers to glacier restoration.
• And the fourth is a Web3 fund. Its purpose is simple: to test whether decentralized finance can lower costs and expand access in emerging markets.

Mercy Corps Ventures has what they call a resilient future thesis. The idea is to back startups that help communities in emerging markets adapt to climate change and recover faster from shocks.

Their thesis is built around three verticals:

• adaptive agriculture and food systems
• inclusive fintech
• climate-smart technologies

Instead of waiting years for perfect research to act on, they put capital to work now. They test what works and learn along the way. As Tim puts it, “We need to take as much impact risk as commercial risk within the realm”.

It’s this willingness to test, fail, and adapt that’s helped MCV move from an experiment inside a nonprofit to one of the most innovative impact investors in the Global South today.

In this interview, Tim talks about what it takes to back founders in fragile markets, why impact investing sometimes means taking risks no one else will, and why boring products like factoring can unlock climate resilience.

Tune in to hear more about his remarkable journey.

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About the SRI 360° Podcast: The SRI 360° Podcast is focused exclusively on sustainable & responsible investing. In each episode, I interview a world-class investor who is an accomplished practitioner from all asset classes.

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Additional Resources:
🔹 Mercy Corps Ventures website

🔹 Mercy Corps Ventures LinkedIn

🔹 Timothy Rann website

🔹 Timothy Rann LinkedIn

🔹 Range of Motion Project (ROMP)

🔹 Support Timothy to help ROMP patients