Our Journey

In 2016, we set out on a journey to build a new type of financial institution for aid. We made a lot of progress — but we didn't achieve our biggest ambition. We wanted to encourage anybody who's thinking to start their own moonshot project, so we've converted our website into a learning hub, where we can share our journey — and the lessons we learned on the way.

Our Story

Our Story

Ben Joakim

Founder

Paul Currion

Founder

In 2016, we set out on a journey to transform the way money flows for social impact. We came together to build Disberse — a new type of financial institution — to address key problems for the aid industry.

In 5 years of running Disberse, we developed the first version of the platform, secured authorisation from the FCA as a small electronic money institution, delivered a series of alpha pilots, secured pre-seed investment from Comic Relief, and went on to secure partnerships and deliver a beta pilot with the UK government and the United Nations.

The Problem

The global financial system is slow, expensive and opaque. Banks weren't built to meet the needs of the aid industry.

🌐

Transparency

Funds cannot be traced end-to-end, decreasing accountability.

⏱

Speed

It can take weeks for transfers to arrive, even in an emergency.

💱

Efficiency

Bank charges and poor exchange rates raise costs and reduce impact.

⚠

Mismanagement

These three problems increase the likelihood of waste, fraud and corruption.

Alpha Phase

In 2018 we delivered an alpha series of pilots in partnership with the Start Network and its NGO members. These pilots validated our model of distributing funds faster, cheaper and more transparently.

Dorcas International, Terre des Hommes, SOS Kinderdorpen

Cash distributions between Netherlands & Ukraine

Dorcas International

Flood response between Netherlands & Albania

Troicaire & Caritas Rwanda

Livelihoods project between Ireland & Rwanda

Positive Women & BoMake

Girls education project between the UK & Swaziland

The 121 Project

Following the success of our Alpha Pilots, Dorcas Aid International asked us to participate in a Dutch Relief Alliance NGO consortium bid with the Netherlands Red Cross, to launch the 121 Project.

We were responsible for setting up channels between individual donors in the Netherlands and UK, and individual recipients via banks in Ethiopia and Malawi. Unfortunately the pilot was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Beta Phase

In 2020, we partnered with the UK Government Department for International Development (DFID) and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). The pilot was organised as a series of sprints, during which we conducted research and analysis of Country Based Pooled Funds in Iraq & the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The pilot culminated in a Simulation Exercise based on historical transactions worth over $140 million.

Sprint 1

We carried out a consultation round with key stakeholders in DFID and UNOCHA, to establish whether our idea made sense, and which problems we could potentially address.

Sprint 2

We collected existing data from UN databases, and new data from interviews with implementing partners. We analysed this data and started to develop visualisations.

Sprint 3

We implemented the Simulation Exercise, compared the performance of the Disberse platform to existing channels, and analysed where the potential improvements were found.

Sprint 4

We produced a learning document that captured key lessons from both the FTL pilot and our longer company history. You can read the report here, and a blog summary here.

During this time, we faced the typical challenges that all fintech startups face — time to market, product market fit, talent fit — but also faced events that created significant uncertainty for our business, the aid industry and key clients.

In July 2020 we were closing a seed investment round of $8 million when our key investor withdrew at the last stage due to ongoing economic uncertainty. The challenges that we sought to address still face the aid industry — but we hope that we moved the discussion forward.

One of our core values was sharing our learning, and so we set up this website to make those resources available to others. We believe that this is essential to help other organisations to develop their own innovative solutions to the problems that we identified.

Timeline

January 2015

Paul Currion publishes AidCoin

January 2016

Ben Joakim starts Disberse

September 2016

Disberse partners with Zerado

February 2017

Disberse implements first Pilot between UK & Swaziland

March 2017

Paul Currion joins Disberse as a Founder

July 2017

Disberse partners with the Start Network

September 2017

Zerado partnership ends

November 2017

We launch the Alpha Version of our platform

January 2018

We receive FCA authorisation as a SEMI

May 2018

We implement our Alpha Pilots

September 2018

We are selected as New Radicals

March 2019

We receive pre-seed investment from Comic Relief

July 2019

We partner with DFID as part of the Frontier Technology Livestreaming (FTL) programme

June 2020

We carry out Simulation Exercise involving $140 million UN funds

July 2020

Our seed investment round falls through during the Covid-19 pandemic

Resources

DFID Beta Pilots

Alpha Pilots

Podcasts

Other Resources

With thanks to

Aleksandar Ostojic Alex Johnson Amir Rizwan Annemarie Poorterman Antony Hermann Archie Graham Asad Rahman Ashley Kemball-Cook Carwyn Jones Claire James David Vigoreux David Woolcock Francisco Riera Gavin Francis Imogen Bunyard Kathryn Llewellyn Laura Bailey Mark Bloom Marko Kovacevic Martyn Davies Miljan Milidrag Nick Ward Númi Östlund Paul Harwood Paul Webb-Jones Pavle Batuta Peter Chapman Rachel Hillier Rhodri Davies Ruben Mulder Sam Goudie Sean Lowrie Sue Guy Tom Keatinge Tomasz Mloduchowski