Caribbean en­tre­pre­neurs are called to ap­ply for 200 com­pet­i­tive spots in a new busi­ness ac­cel­er­a­tor for founders, de­vel­op­ers and cor­po­rate in­no­va­tors.

Re­gion­al en­tre­pre­neurs will have di­rect ac­cess to a bil­lion-dol­lar glob­al net­work of in­vestors with the of­fi­cial launch of the Kanoo In­no­va­tion Hub last Tues­day night in The Ba­hamas.

“We are ded­i­cat­ed to the task of mak­ing in­no­va­tion a cul­tur­al trans­for­ma­tion in the Caribbean. Glob­al ideas re­quire ac­cess to glob­al in­vestors, glob­al clients and glob­al net­works. The Kanoo In­no­va­tion Hub is a pro­gram de­signed specif­i­cal­ly for us, and we are proud to give Caribbean in­no­va­tors ac­cess,” said co-founder Davinia Bain.

She de­tailed that in­no­va­tors will have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to build, scale and fund their ideas with the guid­ance of the Hub and its part­ners.

The Kanoo In­no­va­tion Hub is a joint ven­ture be­tween lead­ing Caribbean fin­tech com­pa­nies Cryp­to Isle and Kanoo Pays in part­ner­ship with Drap­er Uni­ver­si­ty, a top Sil­i­con Val­ley ven­ture cap­i­tal net­work.

The busi­ness ac­cel­er­a­tor has three core pro­grams that pro­vide par­tic­i­pants with tools, tech­niques, and fund­ing to lead and in­no­vate next-gen­er­a­tion glob­al so­lu­tions.

The Hub’s co-founder Nicholas Rees said the first stage of the process is to find 200 in­no­va­tors with the best ideas to en­rol in the Start-Up In­no­va­tion Pro­gram.

Ap­pli­ca­tions are open un­til No­vem­ber 15.

Each stage of the pro­gres­sive process will be­come more com­pet­i­tive, cul­mi­nat­ing with 10 Caribbean en­tre­pre­neurs hav­ing guar­an­teed spots at the high­ly com­pet­i­tive Drap­er Uni­ver­si­ty im­mer­sion ex­pe­ri­ence in Sil­i­con Val­ley. There, they will pitch to a glob­al net­work of in­vestors, and gain ac­cess to seed cap­i­tal be­tween USD$250,000 and USD$3 mil­lion. Sim­pli­fied Lend­ing, a Ba­hami­an fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion known for its busi­ness-friend­ly lend­ing, is one of the first cor­po­rate par­tic­i­pants to sign up.

Cor­po­rate in­no­va­tors can in­vest in se­lect em­ploy­ees to in­cu­bate in­no­va­tion ex­ter­nal­ly with­out the weight draw­backs of cor­po­rate in­er­tia.

“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 Rees.