The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business

Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

A NEWLY-LAUNCHED innovation hub aims to give Bahamian digital assets and technology entrepreneurs direct access to international financing by forging links with California's Silicon Valley.

Davinia Bain, co-founder of Crypto-Isle and the Kanoo Innovation Hub, told Tribune Business that the latter’s website will be soliciting individuals to participate in the “start-up innovation programme".

She added: “This is a two-week long programme that will start on November 28. Those who are successful from that programme, the top 30 persons, will matriculate into our pre-accelerator. That's a four-week programme in conjunction with Draper University.

"Then the final leg is the Silicon Valley programme, where we ship the top ten innovative founders to Silicon Valley for five weeks for an immersion programme with Draper University. The first level of the programme, the innovation start-up programme, that's a maximum of 200 persons. The second level is a maximum of 30. And then the third level is a maximum of ten persons or less.”

This “funnel system” will allow more persons to spread the word about the Kanoo Innovation Hub and bring more people into the initiative, thus broadening the pool of entrepreneurs. The Kanoo Innovation Hub is a joint venture between Crypto Isle and Kanoo Pays, who have partnered with Draper University, a Silicon Valley venture capital network known for its investment in more than 34 unicorn companies and at least six rhino companies.

Nicholas Rees, the hub's co-founder and Kanoo's chairman, said the first stage of the process is to find 200 innovators with the best ideas to enroll in the Start-Up Innovation Programme. Applications are open until November 15. Each stage of the process will become more competitive, culminating with the ten Caribbean entrepreneurs gaining spots at the Draper University immersion experience.

There, they will pitch to a global network of investors, and gain access to seed capital averaging between $250,000 and $3m. “Our goal is to find innovative Caribbean founders, developers and corporations and set them up for success. We want to provide funding and mentorship throughout their business evolution from seed round to exit,” said Mr Rees.

After five weeks in Silicon Valley, the entrepreneurs are expected to compete for the seed capital and “take it global. Ms Bain said: “There are only ten guaranteed seats into the accelerator, and those ten persons when they reach to Silicon Valley, they're going to be with 70 other global innovators."

Participation is not limited to individuals wishing to become involved in the crypto currency or blockchain space, but any technology entrepreneur who can deliver on “broad-based innovation” and demonstrate they have an “investable idea” to take to the next level.

Khadija Ghazi, head of partnerships at Draper University, said: “We are extremely excited about partnering with the Kanoo Innovation Hub. It's our first partnership in the region, and the whole idea that we are going with is that we want to build a bridge between the Caribbean region and Draper University.

“We don't want the venture capital money to be restricted by the region; we want to go after wherever the great ideas are. Blockchain is an area where we have been working quite heavily in the past few years… Kanoo Innovation Hub is where we want to bring the value through acceleration, pre-acceleration and education, giving the aspiring entrepreneurs and existing entrepreneurs access to a much larger ecosystem.

"Entrepreneurship is not something that comes to all of us naturally....We want to do a mass reach out, bringing in people teaching them about the fundamentals of entrepreneurship, innovation and blockchain, specifically in this particular programme.”