My calling: enabling Catalytic Capital

Graceful jellyfish. Baltimore National Aquarium. JP

These past few days, I’ve reflected a lot about what I want to do, who I am and who I want to work with. I kept going back to one of the reasons I left IDB Invest: I wanted to work more on Catalytic Capital at a lower scale. Stirring away from the $20 million minimum tickets, I wanted to get closer to what felt to me the real economy, at a more human scale.

Catalytic Capital

In the Caribbean where I come from, ventures are smaller. The burden of Technical Assistance (“TA”) becomes disproportionate for small projects. Who wants to pay a $150k TA on a $500k project when it dilutes the potential return?

I believe that these TA do not dilute returns, they enable them to become a reality one day. To allow this value creation from 0 to 1, patient and flexible capital is necessary to de-risk the project. This is what Catalytic Capital is about.

Pooling Resources to scale.

Working with small projects is harder because you miss out on economies of scale. Seen from a system perspective, it’s the self-reinforcing loop of winners take all and losers lose more: the bigger you are, the less you will pay, the smaller you are, the more you will pay.

Yet, you have to start small before scaling, and you have to take things one step at a time. Aggregating resources for redistribution to small venture projects becomes a necessary modus operandi. It’s about becoming stronger together. And it’s hard because you have to be flexible and find common ground with partners.

Deploying Capital.

Sure, I love supporting entrepreneurs in their journey towards true investment readiness. That’s why I’m a mentor at the Miller Center for Global Impact. I want entrepreneurs to understand how investors think because I know that a good story gives you an entry point, but true investment readiness closes the deal.

Beyond that, what I really want to do in my professional work is support the deployment of catalytic capital. Finding a way to connect different types of catalytic investors (family offices, foundations, emerging fund managers) in order to create pathways towards creating pools of catalytic capital (concessional capital, guarantees, innovative finance structures).

If this resonates with you, let’s connect. I’m starting out on this journey. I’m resourceful and grounded with my experience in porftolio management (aka: real world execution), negotiating financial contracts, reviewing term sheets, and more.

I am looking for catalytic investor partners willing to co-create solutions to deploy catalytic capital.