Boosting the economy
THE YEAR 2018 marked the centre’s first year implementing its strategic shift from start-ups to scalable, high-potential businesses that are ready to take the leap from small to medium-sized operations.
Under that new mandate, in 2018 we’ve welcomed seven promising businesses in our accelerator programme. These include Blue Dot Data Intelligence Limited, Caribbean Technology Solutions Limited, It’s Pixel Perfect, Chilitos Jamexican Restaurant, Irie Rock, Silver Bowl Restaurant, and A&H Intercrop.
Within months, these businesses have already demonstrated exceptional growth and we have no doubt that the young, bright entrepreneurs behind them will be the Caribbean’s next business leaders. They are overcoming obstacles, landing investors, putting formal structures in place, and growing by leaps and bounds. We anticipate that in short order, this batch of entrepreneurs will generate some of Jamaica’s most exciting IPOs.
We’ve also watched our 160 legacy official entrepreneurs, who we served between 2011 and 2017, grow exponentially. We facilitated more than US$1 million of investments in these entrepreneurs, and they’ve created more than 400 jobs to date. Our entrepreneurs continue to hire more people, expand regionally, land viable funding deals and become business leaders.
Undoubtedly, investing in these budding leaders is a step towards boosting the economy. We recently launched our equity investment offering with some of the strongest sources of capital in Jamaica who come together to jointly review and select businesses to fund that have been trained and prepared by the centre.
All of our successes could not be achieved without our purpose-driven, service-oriented team. It has been exhilarating to stand by their side to support the growth of our nation’s entrepreneurial talent. LISANDRA RICKARDS Chief Entrepreneurial Officer