Beyond the Pillar: The Future of Dominican Investment Funds

By Jonathan Joel Mentor | @jonathanjmentor

The Rose and the Pillar

In El Caribe, journalist Martín Polanco relays the optimism of Santiago Sicard, who leads the country’s association of investment fund managers (ADOSAFI), declaring that “los fondos de inversión ya constituyen un pilar fundamental del desarrollo económico y social dominicano”, pointing to assets under management equal to five percent of GDP, with expectations to double in the years ahead. The claim is seductive. Funds as pillars. Strength as inevitability.

But pillars, if they are to endure, must bear weight. And here lies the fracture.

Liquidity Trapped, Capital in Exile

Polanco’s article praises the industry’s growth and frames “financial education” as the great barrier. Yet the truth is simpler, and sharper: the vehicles themselves are not designed to absorb the capital flows that matter most. A system serving just 0.6%  of Dominicans, compared with a regional average of 5.6%, is not a triumph of inclusion. It is evidence of idle liquidity, trapped potential, and a structure still too brittle to hold real weight.

30% of assets remain parked in sterile financial instruments, capital in exile while productive sectors plead for oxygen. Open-ended funds, which account for 70% of the industry globally but just 25% locally, are treated as the great opportunity. Yet no mention is made of risk, fragility, or the inevitability of a market shock that could turn this so-called pillar into scaffolding.

Startups and Nomads Left Waiting

What does this mean for founders pushing from pre-seed to Series A? 

It means they are building on quicksand. A Dominican startup can find angel checks, maybe even sympathetic family offices. But when the time comes to syndicate with global venture, there is no domestic institution standing beside them. The capital is there, five percent of GDP on paper, but it cannot move at venture speed.

The same is true of the foreign liquidity now arriving through digital nomads. In a recent column: Unlock Startup Capital As a Digital Nomad I guided nomads how to bring not only raise dollars but how to navigate the nuances of emerging economies. Yet with no fund vehicles designed to channel this flow, that liquidity bypasses the Dominican system entirely. It enters as consumption, leaves as remittance, and never compounds into national power.

I have also written before on the bottlenecks Dominican founders face when moving from seed to Series A. Without venture-grade local funds, the system forces startups to leap into global waters without a domestic bridge. And as we’ve noted in our analysis of capital flows, money in motion rarely waits for laggards; it seeks channels ready to absorb and multiply it.

Decoration or Design

None of this diminishes Polanco’s reporting or Sicard’s enthusiasm. They have given us the surface, the rose. But Digital Nomad Weekly cracks the rose colored lenses. 

The Dominican Republic stands at the threshold of something larger than five percent of GDP: the chance to re-engineer its funds into engines of venture, nomad, and startup capital. That would not be a pillar. That would be empire.

The question is not whether funds will grow. They will. The question is whether they will grow as decoration, or as design. Whether they will remain a polite corner of finance for insiders, or evolve into the channels through which Dominican founders, foreign nomads, and global venture capital collide.

As always, the game is not about participation rates or educational campaigns. It is about who controls the flows, and who has the courage to build the vehicles that can carry them.

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Jonathan Joel Mentor is the CEO of Successment and architect of the Provoke Visibility™ campaign, scaling startups and challenging institutions to evolve. Recognized by ADOEXPO + United Nations World Summit Awards |  www.jonathanjmentor.co