The Caribbean Export Development Agency is seeking to develop “an angel investor bank” to assist local and regional businesses with critical capital for their businesses.
Executive director Pamela Coke Hamilton said the organization was in the process of identifying a number of local, regional and international high net-worth individuals who were willing to invest in a number of businesses.
“We have been working on the creation of a kind of angel investor bank. There are some high net-worth individuals who have great interest in trying to see how they could contribute to the region.
“But they need to be tapped and harness into something that is coordinated so they know that they are involved in something that is going to move forward,” she said.
Coke Hamilton explained: “We are working to develop what is a cadre of angel investors, venture capitalists crowd funding persons and also persons who are able to pool together what they call high investor capital. We have quite a few of them across the region, some who actually live here who, frankly, in my view, have not been tapped. Some have even approached me and said there are things they are interested in working on.”
She opted not to give additional details, but said the agency had been working on it for some time and some of the people had already been confirmed. Coke Hamilton said she was hopeful that by the first quarter of 2014 the agency would be able to make an announcement on the development.
Coke Hamilton was speaking to BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY following the official launch of the Break Point television series at the Errol Barrow Centre For Creative Imagination last Tuesday. (MM)