At the end of May, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) held its Invest Impact Manager Masterclass in Barbados. There were 75 participants from 22 countries, representing 36 emerging fund managers and 25 limited partners and ecosystem builders working on the goal of creating the next generation Caribbean and Central American fund managers.

Less than a month later, on June 23, 2026, the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) officially launched the Micro Market at the Terra Nova All-Suite Hotel in Kingston, with the keynote speaker being Minister of Industry, Investment, and Commerce Senator Aubyn Hill. The platform is designed to allow micro and small enterprises to raise between $50 million and $100 million in equity capital.

Modelled on our existing Junior Market of the stock exchange, listed companies receive a full income tax holiday for the first five years, followed by a 50 per cent income tax concession for years six through 10.

Companies are required to have at least 50 shareholders (half the normal number), with the usual 20 per cent public participation, but the additional requirement of a sponsor or anchor investor. The JSE also now offers a “sandbox” programme in partnership with entities like the Jamaica Business Development Corporation (JBDC) to help businesses prepare for corporate governance, reporting, and regulatory standards before listing.

Jamaica has created a stock market infrastructure, which, despite significant gaps and illiquidity, is the envy of the rest of the region. However, it urgently needs to update its 1983 venture capital legislation, finally implement the general partner and limited partner legislation to allow the creation of global fund structures, update its tax legislation to further facilitate capital market development, and look back at the 1994 Employee Share Ownership Programme (ESOP) legislation. While the latter was pioneering in the region at the time, it now urgently needs to be updated, particularly from the perspective of encouraging Diaspora entrepreneurs to create technology and other businesses here.

One of the most important presentations on the vexed question of how to fund Caribbean entrepreneurs at the IDB Barbados event was ‘Pipeline Building, Due Diligence and Deal Execution’ with Marcos Rampoldi, Miami-based US investment bank Broadspan’s managing partner for private capital in Latin America and the Caribbean, and Bert van der Vart, co-founder of private equity fund SEAF, whose last fund was a Caribbean private equity fund.

At the beginning of the session, IDB Invest’s principal investment officer for investment funds, moderator Lucas de Beaufort, drawing on his own vast experience, outlined the objectives for the participants as sharing their experience on how to curate investments, manage their time, and being selective when filtering the hundreds of opportunities to allocate their small amount of capital into the best deals, all while emphasising the importance of local market knowledge of the opportunities and people.

Van der Vaart began by outlining the original thesis for SEAF’s Caribbean fund. SEAF, a Washington-based fund manager with decades of experience in emerging markets, despite never before being in the Caribbean, had relevant experience in deals in similar industries. For him, the right investment candidates want not only money but help with their businesses. Entrepreneurs, he said, were often afraid that their businesses would be taken from them, so alignment of interests was also key. He also noted that while emerging market entrepreneurs typically had a lot of respect for the United States, oftentimes Americans don’t listen well to the local culture, so it helps to have other cultures in the team.

Rampoldi acknowledged the challenge of different perspectives, noting that beyond professional advisors the key is “to understand their counterparts in a family owned business who never had a partner to enable them to share or even cede control”. Critically, as he put it, “The best businesses are also interviewing you.”

One of the key debates was whether sector specialists or generalists were better fund managers — a lot of investing is about pattern recognition or whether one has seen the movie before. Whilst technology businesses may require specific knowledge, Rampoldi argues most “normal” process-based businesses have a “generic” lifecycle allowing analysis based on previous experience.

Technical assistance facilities can be very useful, but it depends on the people available, so using a consultant to help with lead generation may not be very helpful. Another key issue was getting valuation right in an environment in which exits are limited (one of the key findings in my paper ‘A New Approach to Development Banking in Jamaica’). He also noted the key role of the multilaterals in this region in getting funds off the ground: “No development finance institutions, no funds,” and the importance of “anchor” sponsor groups.

Van der Vaart noted the importance of unlocking investment from regional pension funds and identifying deal flow on the ground. He argued that setting up regional funds was helped by the integration between the Caribbean and Central America and Dominican Republic, while The University of the West Indies also helped, particularly for the Caribbean. He noted that part of SEAF’s initial thesis was that there needs to be succession management for businesses that aren’t managed by families to avoid them “ending up with 20 companies they can’t manage”.

Rampoldi emphasised that a regional private equity and capital market would be helped by the current discussion around a regional stock market, better customs, and easier immigration.

In just over a week’s time, on July 16, the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce, in partnership with the Small Business Association of Jamaica, will be holding a one-day Growth and Resilience conference on ‘Rebuilding the MSME sector: A national imperative for 2026 and beyond’ sponsored, inter alia, by the IDB and the Development Bank of Jamaica. This presents an excellent opportunity to explore these issues further.

Keith Collister