At TechBeach, building bridges between Latin America, the Caribbean and Miami

Investment, talent, and developing innovation ecosystems top of mind as international technologists converge on Miami Beach

By Riley Kaminer

During day one of TechBeach’s Miami Retreat, investors, founders and ecosystem builders came together to discuss Latin America and the Caribbean’s rapidly-expanding tech scene – and think about the role Miami can play in this growth.

“We’re on a mission to create a space where underrepresented founders have serious representation in rooms that provide access to capital, influence, resources, knowledge, and people who know how to build things,” said Miami-based TechBeach co-founder Kirk-Anthony Hamilton. 

“We are here in Miami for what is the next evolution of our vision: to build out the ecosystem that supports Caribbean entrepreneurs by creating a connection with Latin America, and furthermore, deepening our connection with North America,” Hamilton continued. 

Kirk-Anthony Hamilton, co-founder of TechBeach

TechBeach, which Hamilton co-founded alongside Kyle Maloney, was originally founded in Jamaica, with hubs across the Caribbean.

Damian McIntyre, TechBeach’s Saint Lucia-based Head of Research, laid out the opportunities for the ecosystem. Top of the list? A strong community of founders. TechBeach’s accelerator alone saw 80 companies from 14 different countries. 

McIntyre noted that more than a third of startups are in the eCommerce space, taking advantage of Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago’s high score on an index measuring consumer readiness for eCommerce technology. 

Another 20% of the Caribbean tech space is composed of fintech companies, according to McIntyre. This makes sense considering, among other factors, the large amount of remittances these countries receive: $3 billion a year in Jamaica alone. 

That’s an opportunity for Miami tech, considering that 78% of these remittances come from the US. But equally it’s an opportunity for ecosystem development in the region, asserted McIntyre.

“By simply moving 1% of remittances in Jamaica to tech, we could divert $30 million a year to our founders,” he said. “That would revolutionize our industry.”

Charting Miami’s rise as a global hub

Of course, a strong bond between Miami and its southern neighbors is nothing new. But speakers noted that Miami’s emergence as a global tech hub has further increased the value for forging these connections.

“I like to look at Miami as an inspiration,” said New York-based Jason Saltzman, co-founder and CEO of fintech Relief, who lived here 10 years ago. 

“At that time, it was extremely hard to raise capital and meet anybody that was into startups,” Saltzman continued. “When you’d tell someone that you were working on a startup in Miami, they would instantly think it’s a fraud. Now the top venture capitalists and founders are coming here and signing long-term office leases. It’s mind blowing and super inspirational.”

Miami native Francesca de Quesada Covey, who is Head of Early Stage Investments at TheVentureCity, echoed these sentiments. She recalled a conversation with her boss at Facebook, when she left London to return to Miami. 

“He said, ‘you can have a great career in Miami for as long as you want, but know that your trajectory is going to be much slower than if you move to San Francisco.” Now, in her estimations, this is no longer necessarily the case.

So what do the next 10 years have in store for Miami? “I’d like to see Miami leading the way in learning from some of the highs and lows of other ecosystems,” said Maria Derchi, Executive Director of Refresh Miami and VP at Florida Funders, noting that housing affordability and climate change remain major issues that tech might be able to help tackle. 

“I’d like to see us keep our international influence, and continue to uplift everyone,” Derchi added.

Top founders and investors share insights with budding entrepreneurs

In the most widely attended session of the day, two Miami-based tech legends shared a wide range of lessons they learned with early stage entrepreneurs. 

Jon Oringer, founder and chairman of Shutterstock, took the stage with Edward Lando, a serial entrepreneur and his co-founder at investor Pareto Holdings.

Lando asserted that the tech ecosystem did not really draw him to Miami. In fact, he saw it more as an opportunity to improve his tennis game – although he did admit that the Magic City is “a great place to focus and get work done.” 

He acknowledged Miami’s diversity, and its global nature. But ultimately, the move to remote work means that talent is distributed anyways. “I think we’ll just do stuff anywhere,” he said.

When asked about the importance of diversity, Lando said that he is more interested in meritocracy. But with this approach, “it turns out that all these teams actually end up being diverse,” he said.

“I look for the best ideas and the best people,” added Oringer. “In my experience, diversity comes with it.”

Oringer also noted that COVID pushed remote and hybrid work trends forward by 20 or 30 years. “We’re beginning to understand that sometimes people need to work together, and sometimes they just need to be working. And if they prefer to work from home in their pajamas, they should do that. Sometimes I do that myself.”

Lando’s take on Web3: “It has attracted a lot of the dumbest people that I’ve ever met and the smartest people I’ve ever met.” Oringer has an open mind to Web3, but has not delved very deep into that world just yet.

Ja’dan Johnson, Kirk-Anthony Hamilton, Edward Lando, Jon Oringer, Kyle Maloney.

Tech investment as an engine for social progress

Henri Pierre-Jacques, managing partner of Harlem Capital, and Kwame Anku, founder of the BlackStar Fund, opined on the opportunities available to minority founders.

For Anku, sharing success stories is critical. “We have an entrepreneur here in Miami, an African woman rocket scientist named Mary Spio, who sold $2 million in virtual real estate on her metaverse platform in 36 hours. She didn’t build a metaverse company last year when it was cool and cute – she was the one who did the presentation at Facebook in 2015. And most people have never heard of her.”

Pierre-Jacques echoed these sentiments, noting that building the Harlem Capital brand almost in a D2C fashion has been critical to the company’s growth.

“We were able to write $15k to $25k checks as 25-year-olds because we had a strong brand,” he said, realizing early the power of the influencer economy.

“When we’re talking about diversity, we’ve got to be really clear,” Pierre-Jacques said. “Diversity is a means to an end. We never talk about what that end is. That end is power: the ability to do something.” For the Harlem Capital team, the end goal is to uplift underrepresented founders and reduce the disparities we see in the US and globally.

Day two opens today with talks from Jeff Hoffman, chairman of the Global Entrepreneurship Network; Barron Channer, founder of Black Angels Miami; Torez Hanna, Head of Investments at FTX Bahamas Venture; Melissa Pegus, managing director of Techstars Atlanta; and more.

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Riley Kaminer