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Sponsors and Partners of the CFA Incubator:

The Conservation Finance Alliance (CFA) Incubator Launches its 3rd Round!

After a rigorous three-stage review process involving expert judges from leading conservation and finance institutions, we are thrilled to welcome ten projects to our 2025 cohort. Five projects will receive grants of $25,000, while all projects will benefit from mentorship, technical assistance, and global exposure through CFA’s network. This third round of the CFA Incubator is being supported by the Nature Transformation Fund run by Milkywire, in collaboration with Klarna. 

Sponsor the CFA Incubator! write us at incubator@cfalliance.org

The CFA Incubator supports a wide range of innovation in conservation finance, including conservation finance ventures that can generate a financial return and conservation finance concepts that lead to policy, regulatory, or non-profit finance solutions. All projects that enter the Incubator must be innovative approaches to conservation challenges that use finance or economic tools to create clear conservation outcomes or sustained conservation financing. Concepts can be from any sector (public, private, etc.) and can include ideas generated directly by CFA members, partner organizations, and independent organizations and entrepreneurs. Projects may or may not seek to return a profit yet must return long-term financing or clear conservation impact. Solutions can be designed as independent companies, financial products, or other mechanisms. Submissions can also include policy or regulatory innovations that create enabling conditions for profitable conservation investments, including such ideas as new regulatory markets. All accepted Incubator proponents will participate in an intensive training program and mentorship support.

The focus of the CFA Incubator is “idea” and “early-stage” projects. Strong candidates for these solutions are entrepreneurs or non-profits willing to invest their time and their own money to succeed. Desired outputs for the incubation period might include the preparation of a business plan, financial model, an investors’ deck, a completed feasibility study, an implementation guide or outside financing.

Incubated projects and companies receive mentorship from the CFA Incubator co-leads, Dr. David Meyers and Dr. Ben Guillon, as well as mentorship and targeted expertise from the CFA Incubator Manager, CFA members and partners.

Dr. David Meyers is the Executive Director of the Conservation Finance Alliance (CFA). He is an environmental finance expert and entrepreneur with more than 35 years of experience in sustainability, business strategy and management, environmental economics, international conservation and development, training, education and research in ecology and evolution. David is the co-chair of the IUCN WCPA Sustainable Fin ance Specialist Group and a lead author of the Practice Guidance for Protected and Conserved Area Finance. From 2012 until 2018, David was a Sr. Technical Advisor for the Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN/UNDP) where he led the methodology development including the concept of the Biodiversity Finance Plan. David has launched and managed various companies including a financial services company providing online marketplaces for impact investing and environmental assets, a triple - bottom - line bamboo - floor ing manufacturer in Madagascar, and a technology incubator. At the CFA , David has expanded membership, supported conservation trust funds, led two rounds of the CFA Incubator, provided strategic advisory for the Global Fund for Coral Reefs, and built signi ficant capacity in the field. David has spent well over a decade in Madagascar and has worked in 50+ countries. In Madagascar, he helped the country plan and execute a doubling of the area under conservation including establishing the 370,000 ha Makira Nat ural Park using REDD+ financing. He holds a Doctorate in Biological Anthropology and Anatomy from Duke University and an MBA from the Yale School of Management.

Dr. Ben Guillon brings 20 years of conservation finance experience and a unique blend of conservation science and financial expertise to his role as a conservation finance pioneer. His career spans from deploying capital for the World Bank's nature conservation enterprises in Africa to managing a $50 million private equity fund at New Forests focused on environmental markets. As founder of Conservation Investment Management, he helps investors put their money to work protecting nature while generating returns. When he's not structuring conservation deals, Ben dedicates his time to mentoring the next generation of conservation entrepreneurs – he's been a coach for the CFA Incubator since its inception and leads training programs for the U.S. Forest Service on innovative conservation business models. An angel investor in nature-tech startups himself, Ben combines hands-on investment experience with his background in veterinary medicine and environmental economics to help conservation entrepreneurs turn their ideas into reality. His work spans from developing the first private species conservation bank in Colorado to helping corporations design and implement strategic conservation investments in forest health and biodiversity protection.

• Incubation Period: May 2025 - January 2026

The CFA Incubator is a recurring program of the CFA and has run two rounds supporting over 22 projects or companies through a combination of finance, technical support, and mentorship. Past CFA Incubator partners have included Conservation International Ventures, Mirova, BNP-Paribas, and others. The previous CFA Incubator cohort members are listed below!

Informational Webinar - Watch the recording

Introducing the 2025 CFA Incubator Cohort

Selected for Grant Funding and Incubation 

• The Salmon Impact Bond. A nature bond model supporting Indigenous-led salmon habitat restoration and community development in Wuikinuxv territory. Team: Eddy Adra, Tamara Isaak, Ross Dixon, Audrey Popa, Coast Funds, Canada; Danielle Shaw, Andra Forney, Wuikinuxv First Nation.

• ABC BirdsPlus Index. Developing a business strategy for the BirdPlus Index, a biodiversity monitoring tool leveraging bird sound recognition and AI to measure biodiversity and ecosystem health. Team: Corey Martignetti, Holly Robertson, and Eliot Miller, American Bird Conservancy, USA.

• Finance for incentive-based marine conservation in small-scale fisheries. Establishing and scaling sustainable finance to conserve marine megafauna (e.g., sharks, rays, turtles) through expanding a unique incentive-based program that  delivers positive outcomes for biodiversity and people in coastal communities. Lead: Hollie Booth, University Of Oxford & Kebersamaan Untuk Lautanuk, Indonesia/UK.

• Global Green Visa. Developing a national-level tourism levy linked to an impact bond to finance nature conservation. Team: Bhalin Singh and Peter Jipp, Prajna Ventures, Rwanda/Luxembourg.

• Finance for Small Scale Fisheries in Africa. Innovative provision of technical assistance and microcredits to support positive outcomes for biodiversity and people in coastal communities in Africa. Team: Camille Richer, BlueMove; Thomas Binet, BlueSeeds, Tunisia & Senegal. 

Selected for Incubation

• Karukinka’s Impact Bond. Finance for peatland and forest protection in Karukinka Natural Park, Patagonia, through an outcome-based bond. Team: Melissa Carmody Lobo and Cristóbal Arredondo, WCS, Chile.

• Caribbean Debt Conversion. Exploring a debt conversion to unlock sustainable conservation finance in Cuba. Team: Fernando Bretos & Jim Tolisano, Cresta Coastal Network; Mark J. Spalding, the Ocean Foundation; Ulises Fernandez, CITMA, Cuba. 

• Finance solutions for sustainable scallop fisheries. Developing metrics and an associated finance system to transform scallop fisheries. Lead. Tom Hooper, Fishtek Marine LTD, UK.

• Mitsiry Biodiversity and Climate Trust Fund. Leveraging blended finance and technical assistance to grow biodiversity-focused small and medium-sized enterprises. Team: Koloina Ramaromandray, Lea Meleard & Emmanuel Cotsoyannis, Mirakap; Madagascar and Eastern & Southern Africa.

• Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCA) Infrastructure Impact Bond – A scalable approach to fund infrastructure in TFCAs. Lead: Onkemetse Nteta, IUCN, South Africa.

Previous Winners

CFA Incubator Round 2 Projects - 2022

Incubation and Financial Support

• Blue Recovery Bond - Planet Tracker – Reversing financial incentives for overfishing.

• Microfinance for Community Conservation - WWF and Kiva – collaborating to bring microfinance to conservation enterprises in the Amazon and beyond.

• Mwenzi Capital - Conservation Capital – Blended finance mechanism for sharing profits in nature-based enterprises in Africa. 

• Ocean Eye – Tourism platform facilitating micro payments to coastal communities based on wildlife sightings.

• Ng’wala Inventions – Designing and operating digital solar-powered organic pesticide and fertilizer dispensing machines for rural farmers in Africa.

Incubation

• Decentralized Finance “DeFi” Registries in Water Quality Markets - Ecomarket Services, AQAIX, and i2 Capital - transforming water quality markets using blockchain technology.

• Nature 4 Climate Fund - Natural Strategies Investments - Bridging commercial interests and long-term sustainable solutions by effectively connecting capital with conservation.

CFA Incubator Round 1 Projects - 2020-2021

Mentors and Partners

The CFA Incubator builds its mentorship roster from the CFA’s Innovation Working Group. If you are interested in becoming a mentor for selected projects or partner with the CFA Incubator, please fill out This FORM.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Read the FAQ here.

Questions?

Email questions or partnership inquiries to incubator@cfalliance.org.

Questions?

Please send a message to incubator@cfalliance.org

Informational Webinars

Watch the recordings of past webinars