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InvestPR locks down 5K jobs, $270M in capital investments in fiscal ’21

Invest Puerto Rico — a nonprofit investment promotion organization — confirmed that it was able to lock down commitments generating almost 5,000 jobs, with $270 million in capital investment for the island in Fiscal 2021.

Those achievements will be included in the entity’s final report to be released in a few months, Ella Woger-Nieves, chief operating officer for InvestPR, told News is my Business.

InvestPR also generated nearly 5,000 leads from investors interested in Puerto Rico, and 2,000 prospect opportunities for projects. With these, they calculated an increase on job commitments by 40% in contrast with their prior year, she said.

“One of the things we were able to do was show how Puerto Rico has really pivoted and has surpassed and became resilient showing that we get back on our feet fast,” Woger-Nieves said.

“Beside the catastrophic events and the pandemic, we were more productive in the pandemic and allowed Puerto Rico to really showcase what it has to offer and the value proposition it has to offer from a bioscience standpoint. We worked hard to pivot and showcase Puerto Rico as an investment jurisdiction despite all the challenges and our numbers reflect that,” she said.

To strengthen the InvestPR pipeline, the entity launched the East coast Business Advisory Council in New York in August 2021, a group of seven that “represents investment professionals, business influencers, and entrepreneurs with expertise in their current markets as well as the local business landscape,” who will support InvestPR’s business development initiatives and lead generation.

A few weeks after the group was formed, InvestPR launched its match-making platform, Impeller.

“Last year we did the groundwork for the Impeller platform that launched this fiscal year, two weeks ago and it was a complete success. It’s a matchmaking platform that allows investors who have capital to connect with investment opportunities that exist here in Puerto Rico,” said Woger.

“Now, more than 500 people have seen the platform, more than 350 accounts have been created on the platform as such,” she added.

“We’re working with around 20 deals to match investors with the island. We see this as an essential tool to attract foreign capital to the island. They had told us before that they wanted to invest in Puerto Rico and they didn’t know where and we ended up creating a tool that allowed just that,” said Woger.

As for its current fiscal year, InvestPR is getting ready to launch a new institutional brand, a new website, along with a modified value proposition for Puerto Rico as an investment jurisdiction. They are aiming to collaborate with New York, San Fransisco, Chicago and eventually Europe as a next-generation location for pharmaceutical devices.

InvestPR also seeks to continue working with the Department of Economic Development and Commerce (DDEC, in Spanish) and the agency’s different bioscience propositions, while evaluating Puerto Rico’s assets.

Lastly, InvestPR also wants to start helping strengthen economic development by creating an economic development pilot program with different municipalities that would help educate local communities on economic developing planning to support upcoming businesses, she said.

Author Details
Author Details
Yamilet Aponte-Claudio was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She graduated from Colegio Nuestra Señora de la Providencia and is currently a junior at Sacred Heart University. Majoring in Journalism and adding a minor in sustainable development and foreign languages, she aspires to study law after obtaining her bachelor’s degree.
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