Caribbean Tech Unicorns are Possible? Yes

The Caribbean is often overlooked and underestimated by tech startup founders and the investors who back them. And when I talk about the Caribbean here, I’m not referring to LAC; I’m talking about the actual Caribbean region.

Take the food and grocery delivery market, for example. There are 46.4 million people living in the Caribbean, and with a conservatively estimated SAM (serviceable addressable market) of 4.9 million people, we’re looking at an $820 million USD per year opportunity.

This means it’s entirely possible for a strong player to reach unicorn status just by focusing on the Caribbean. And of course, once they’ve achieved success in the Caribbean, they don’t have to stop there.

Years ago I read an article about Irish entrepreneur Denis O’Brien and his decision around where Digicel should operate. It stuck with me. They first considered getting a mobile carrier license in the US, then realized that even with the fairly sizable amount of capital they had access to, trying to compete against the established telecom giants in the US, who would still be able to outspend them, was probably not the best decision.

He did realize however, that the Caribbean, when looked at as a whole rather than as small individual markets, presented a massive opportunity that they could build a huge company on top of—and they did. Their recent woes aside, what they managed to build was remarkable, and the decision to focus on the then underserved Caribbean was a significant part of that success.

Very often, gems of opportunity exist within underserved and overlooked markets, but only those forward-thinking and brave enough to take the risk, reap the rewards.