Last October, I resigned as CEO of Digicel TCI and started a company called “Domus Semo Sancus” (DSS) – Latin for “House of Trust”. DSS is a financial technology (FinTech) company that’s building tools to help bridge the e-commerce divide. There are over 2 billion persons around the world who are unbanked or under-banked, and as more and more of the world’s financial transactions become “cashless”, those persons are being left behind. We at DSS are developing solutions to combat that. Our aim is to “Make Lives Better”!
DSS is currently a startup, the most fragile phase of a company’s existence. Success at this stage depends a lot on having adequate funding, although no amount of funding can turn a bad idea into a successful company.
When starting a company, the Founder(s) would self-finance it with support from friends and family, raising just enough funds to cover the cost of setting up the company and developing the idea. Getting to market normally requires a second larger round of financing, and this is the most critical round. It is so important that persons who invest in this round are called “Angels”. After a company’s product(s) and/or services are in market (and ideally generating revenues) a Venture Capitalist (VC) may consider investing in it.
Through God’s blessings, I was able to get DSS to the point where we launched our first product, but unfortunately just short of VC funding. At that point, what DSS needed were Angels, but finding them here is next to impossible!
One of the problems is that there is no “old money” in the Turks & Caicos. And the few residents with enough capital to become Angels are the “nouveau riche”, who are only comfortable investing in real estate. For example, I was looking to raise less than US$250k, offering 20% interest for 6 months, with the option to turn the debt into equity and got no takers. And it wasn’t the size of the request that was the “turnoff” – as I have a friend with a great business idea looking to raise less than US$20k on the same terms, and he’s getting no takers. When did a 20% interest rate for 6 months become unattractive to a lender?
Notwithstanding the above, I do understand the reluctance to invest in anything but real estate. It takes a commitment bordering on recklessness to see prime real estate heavily discounted, and having the means to purchase it, but pass it up to invest in something that in a worst case scenario could end up having zero (US$0) value. That said, the investment could also end up being worth more than what the average person can spend in a lifetime.
Raising funds to start a business is hard, and extra so in the Turks & Caicos. The pool of potential investors here is small, and those with sufficient means to become Angels are reluctant to do so. To them, real estate is a far more attractive investment. However, most of the global wealth generated by companies are not in the hands of the founders (or their families), but in the hands of those who invested in the companies. Backing a great company can be just as lucrative as founding a great company. And when that happens, it creates a win win win situation for the founder(s), the investor(s), and the next generation of entrepreneurs – as it creates a pool of capital and knowledge that can be tapped into. But first, we need the Angels to come forth.
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