The funds will be delivered to the firm Xcapit. The company will grant a section for raising money in crypto for charity.
The United Nations Children’s Fund, better known as Unicef for its acronym in English, announced the financing of a startup in Argentina with up to USD 100,000, which will be delivered in ether (ETH). The goal is to promote financial education in areas of the population that do not have access to these services at all.
The company benefiting from this UNICEF initiative, coordinated through the Investment Fund and CryptoFund of the organization, is Xcapit, based in Córdoba. Also, the project encompasses five other relevant firms from Mexico, India, Nepal, Kenya, and Rwanda. This seed capital investment will serve to promote and inform about the many investment methods based on new technologies in a country like Argentina.
Xcapit is a platform that links to a Binance account to create investments through an artificial intelligence (AI) procedure. There are different investment plans and models that each user can choose according to their possibilities.
The company started in 2018 and, according to the article posted by Unicef Innovation Fund, it will receive 43.78 ether (ETH) for the development of its services for the 1.7 billion people who can’t get proper access to these facilities in Latin America.
On the website of the venture, there are references about its contribution to the UN, and the following message appears there: “We are building a blockchain platform powered by AI, which encourages a culture of savings and investment among young citizens.” One of the ideas of this project is that Xcapit has an area dedicated to raising funds in crypto to allocate to community aid in Argentina.
UNICEF and its Use of Cryptocurrencies
The Unicef Crypto Fund (whose official name is UNICEF Cryptocurrency Fund) was launched in 2019 and, as the organization itself promotes, it represents the first initiative of its nature in the United Nations. It is part of the Unicef Innovation Fund, which has already brought support to 110 startups from 57 countries with a total of more than USD 10 million.
In a dialogue with the Clarín newspaper, Cecilia Chapiro, investment advisor at the Crypto fund, explained that “few people relate UNICEF with blockchain, with technology, with digital currencies. But precisely in my area, we intend to explore how these emerging technologies can bring a positive impact on the world.”
Chapiro also added that all the companies in which this area of Unicef is interested “have a technological base, especially in virtual reality, data science, internet, drones, and even blockchain.”
These financings have also happened in previous years, and several Latin American companies have received contributions. Such is the case of OS City, a Mexican startup that plays a major role in advising governments to offer services to their citizens based on blockchain technology. Likewise, Cireha, from Argentina, and Afinidata, from Guatemala, have been other supported projects in the Latin American region during 2020.
By: Jenson Nuñez
