Raphael John-Lall

raphael.lall@guardian.co.tt

An­gel in­vestors, an al­ter­na­tive to tra­di­tion­al banks for new en­tre­pre­neurs, are of­ten over­looked al­though their vi­sion is im­por­tant in un­lock­ing in­no­va­tion and in­sight, Trade Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon said yes­ter­day.

“It is no se­cret that ac­cess to ad­e­quate fi­nance to launch, de­vel­op and grow is a crit­i­cal chal­lenge for SME’s in the re­gion,” she told par­tic­i­pants at a Caribbean An­gel In­vestor Fo­rum at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.

“Lim­it­ed op­tions with­in the tra­di­tion­al bank­ing sys­tem are dif­fi­cult to se­cure due to col­lat­er­al re­quire­ments and ven­ture cap­i­tal. There­fore, if our busi­ness­es are to com­pete glob­al­ly, the sup­port of di­verse in­vest­ment modal­i­ties is cru­cial. I must ap­plaud the an­gel in­vestors in­vest­ment ecosys­tem in Trinidad and To­ba­go which has helped to cre­ate a pro­gramme which pro­vides a fo­rum for bud­ding en­tre­pre­neurs to re­ceive much-need­ed ven­tur­ing and cap­i­tal.”

Gopee-Scoon said Ama­zon was brought to life by sev­er­al an­gel in­vestors in 1994 and has be­come the world’s largest on­line re­tail­er worth more than US$363 bil­lion.

“It is a prime ex­am­ple of the pos­si­bil­i­ty of in­vest­ing in a vi­sion,” she said.

She told an­gel in­vestors at the con­fer­ence that their risk-tak­ing helps re­gion­al en­ter­pris­es to de­vel­op new con­cepts and ideas, cre­at­ing more com­pet­i­tive busi­ness­es ca­pa­ble of re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al ex­pan­sion.

“While most an­gel in­vestors are not mil­lion­aires, their en­tre­pre­neur­ial skills, their ex­pe­ri­ence and net­works add val­ue to the eco­nom­ic sys­tem and help fledgeling en­tre­pre­neurs suc­ceed. In­ter­na­tion­al brands, in­clud­ing Ap­ple, In­sta­gram and Linkedin, all ben­e­fit­ed from in­puts by an­gel in­vestors.”

Cana­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er to T&T Car­la Hogan-Rufelds al­so high­light­ed the im­por­tance of an­gel in­vestors glob­al­ly, de­scrib­ing them as “a fun­da­men­tal piece of do­ing busi­ness,” she said.

She added: “Cana­da has in­vest­ed Can$20 mil­lion in the En­tre­pre­neur­ship Pro­gramme In­no­va­tion in the Caribbean (EPIC). EPIC sup­ports the pro­mo­tion of high growth, in­clu­sive en­tre­pre­neur­ship, in the Caribbean. As we know, ac­cess to fi­nance is a key is­sue for sus­tain­able en­tre­pre­neur­ship. This is why an­gel in­vest­ing are so im­por­tant and why in­vest­ing in the Caribbean An­gel Net­work is a part of the project.”

The High Com­mis­sion­er al­so spoke about the Women In­no­va­tors’ Net­work (WINK) for the Caribbean, a men­tor­ing lead­er­ship train­ing pro­gramme for co­horts of busi­ness women. She said there is a need for more women to get in­volved in an­gel in­vest­ing.