Calling ventures building digital finance solutions to apply to the 2023 IDEO Last Mile Money Accelerator!
Co-authored by Mira J and Dipika Prasad
After a successful first — and second! — accelerator, IDEO Last Mile Money is inviting ventures that are scaling digital finance solutions in emerging markets to apply to the cohort. We’d especially love to invite teams reaching women customers digitally or through merchants and agents! The deadline to apply is Friday, May 26, 2023, by midnight PST.
The ideal venture for the accelerator
At Last Mile Money, our mission is to bring world-class financial services to millions of last-mile users in emerging markets. Today, this quickly-growing market is largely underserved by current digital financial ventures. The challenge is especially significant when it comes to women — nearly 1 billion women do not have financial access or use formal financial services. We’re looking to back promising founding teams who are building products that:
- See women at the last mile as a key demographic to focus on for future growth. This might show up as women making up a key portion of current user metrics, or having specific resources dedicated to growing women users, etc.
- Enable emerging entrepreneurs, like micro-merchants and business owners, to participate in digital financial services — e.g. adding cash-in/cash-out and bill pay services, digitizing their finances, and offering formal credit.
- Boost the income of mobile money agents and micro-merchants, through services such as agent training and onboarding, float loan provision, P2P services, and more.
Working with IDEO LMM has helped ventures get closer to product-market fit and scale
Our accelerator portfolio spans 15 countries, with cohort members reaching 5M+ end users. Curious about what it’s like to join the accelerator cohort? Here are two stories of the impact our work has created for portfolio companies:
Haqdarshak
Haqdarshak helps last-mile users in India access welfare schemes through a network of 25,000+ agents, most of whom are women, and they’ve unlocked more than US$ 500M in welfare support since their launch in 2016. We worked with Haqdarshak to help translate their vision of becoming more product-led, rather than service-led, by building a new digital interface comprising new apps for agents and customers.
Here’s what Savita Muley, Haqdarshak’s Chief Product Officer, had to say about the experience:
“The insights from the program helped us revisit our approach with product design and development while also thinking about engagement models with agents based on learnings from other peers. We are now revamping our entire agent-focused strategy to help agents earn better incomes, and in turn, also improve our financials driven by stronger agent engagement and retention approach.”
Gigmile
Gigmile’s long-term vision is to build a neobank for gig workers in Africa. Today, they focus on helping gig workers get started by acquiring productive assets (e.g. bikes for delivery riders, POS devices for mobile money agents) on a pay-as-you-go basis, with gig workers eventually becoming owners of these assets. They also introduce workers to work opportunities and provide value-added services such as micro-loans for vehicle fueling and phone repair.
We designed a P2P float exchange product for Gigmile, which can help delivery riders deposit extra cash with trustworthy mobile money agents, and also earn up to 10% more each month by delivering cash from one mobile money agent to another. When asked to share more about his experience with LMM, Co-Founder, and CEO Kayode Adeyinka said:
“In a matter of weeks, our work with the LMM team took us from a paper sketch to a product prototype we’re excited and confident about. What’s more is that through the program we met another venture that we’re considering as the infrastructural backbone of this product. I hadn’t realized that the tech stack might already exist. This can get us on the track to scale much faster than I originally anticipated.”
Key benefits for accelerator startups
The 2023 Last Mile Money Accelerator is designed to help your venture level up through expert design and financial support. If accepted, your startup will have access to a host of benefits, including
- Grant funding: US$ 50K of non-dilutive capital to build and pilot a prototype for engaging women in digital financial services
- Design support: Get weekly design office hours with IDEO designers for 8–12 weeks. In addition to UX/UI design, tap into our expertise on topics such as user research, business design, organizational design, and more. In addition, startups may be eligible to get further support from a full-time team of IDEO designers for 4–6 week design sprints.
- Scale mentors: Get access to our network of mentors from telcos, FMCGs, technology firms, investors, and other organizations. Mentors include:
- CICO Collective: Receive membership to Last Mile Money’s Cash-In Cash-Out (CICO) Collective — an online community of 1,200+ other founders and experts building for the last mile, giving you access to salons, webinars, and co-creation opportunities.
- Fundraising support: We’ll set you up with one-on-one coaching for developing a powerful fundraising strategy and narrative, and offer warm introductions to help you build momentum.
Build relationships with IDEO and our network
At IDEO Last Mile Money, we believe that together, we can do more. We’ve worked in collaboration with firms from across the world — from multinationals like Google, Unilever, and Vodafone to growing startups like NowMoney, Finja, Boost, and more.
Since the start of our work in 2019, we’ve designed and tested 95+ prototypes alongside our partners through Hard Problems Shares, Makeathons, and Design Sprints, and we currently have 23 pilots that have launched or are presently in the market. Combined, our work has reached over 900k agents and merchants, and millions of end users. We’ve helped bring US$5M of direct follow-on capital to Last Mile Money partners.
Apply now!
Join us to harness the power of collaborative design to build better digital financial products for the last mile! Apply here by May 26th, 2023 at midnight PST. Reach out to us for any questions at miraj@ideo.com. We’re looking forward to receiving your application!
