Lisk has launched a $15 million venture initiative, the Lisk EMpower Fund, aimed at accelerating Web3 startups in Africa, Latin America (LATAM), and Southeast Asia.
The fund positions itself as a counterweight to the oversaturated Western venture scene, where valuations are at record highs and returns are increasingly muted.
Lisk’s $15 Million EMpower Fund Targets the Gaps Global VCs Miss
Lisk is betting that the world’s most transformative Web3 companies will emerge from frontier economies often dismissed by Silicon Valley.
The Lisk EMpower Fund will distribute up to $250,000 in capital per startup, while providing hands-on advisory covering regulatory compliance, tokenization, and fundraising strategies.
Early recipients include South Africa’s Lov.cash (digital supply chain), Afrikabal (agritech), Indonesia’s IDRX (stablecoin), and SigraFi (gold-backed lending).
According to Gideon Greaves, Head of Investments at Lisk, the fund’s thesis is simple: where global VCs see risk, Lisk sees overlooked value.
A $5.2 Trillion Untapped Opportunity
Emerging markets represent an estimated $5.2 trillion untapped investment opportunity, with venture returns averaging 9–11% annually over the past 15 years. Yet, many founders in these regions bootstrap their way to Series A traction without institutional backing.
Greaves believes this necessity-driven entrepreneurship is often a better recipe for resilient founders.
By entering only after startups demonstrate traction, Lisk reduces risk while embedding advisory to ensure companies graduate “Series A-ready.”
This means Lisk EMpower Fund recipients will receive advisory support on regulatory compliance, tokenization strategies, and fundraising preparation.
Greaves contrasted this approach with what he called the “parachute capital” often deployed by Western investors.
Bridging the Disconnect Between Risk and Value
For decades, Western VCs have viewed frontier markets as unstable and opaque. Lisk rejects that framing.
This positioning gives Lisk a dual advantage. On the one hand, founders get more than cash, while on the other, global investors receive vetted, de-risked deal flow.
With US seed-stage ventures facing near-zero three-year returns, the disconnect between capital supply and frontier demand is widening — a gap Lisk intends to fill.
Tokenization and the Future of Venture
A distinguishing feature of the EMpower Fund is its tokenized structure for limited partner (LP) subscriptions. By digitizing LP shares, Lisk introduces liquidity into an asset class that traditionally locks capital for a decade.
The structure allows smaller investors to participate while enabling secondary market liquidity — a move Greaves says demonstrates credibility.
Impact as a Byproduct of Scale
Unlike many emerging market funds that pitch themselves on impact alone, Lisk insists its lens is business-first.
For him, the same transparency and trustless efficiency underpin blockchain also make local impact measurable and unavoidable.
The Next Wave of Unicorns
Lisk sees the greatest opportunities in financial infrastructure, digital identity, and supply chain visibility. Greaves pointed to mobile money’s $1.68 trillion volume in 2024, two-thirds of which came from Africa, as proof of how fast adoption can scale.
If Lisk’s thesis holds true, the next generation of Web3 unicorns will be minted not in Silicon Valley but across Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, with the West struggling to catch up.
The post Is Web3’s Next Boom Coming from Africa, LATAM, and Asia? Lisk Bets $15 Million on It appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Source: https://beincrypto.com/lisk-15-million-empower-fund/
