SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO – Invest Puerto Rico (InvestPR) the island’s economic development organization, shared its achievements for the 2020-2021 fiscal year. As submitted to the InvestPR Board of Directors and the Department of Economic Development and Commerce (DDEC, for its Spanish acronym), the results show that the organization is on track in its mission of elevating the island as a competitive business and investment destination.
InvestPR collaborated with key partners to generate over 4,700 leads and 2,000 prospect opportunities, resulting in commitments of 555 new businesses, 4,998 jobs, and $270M in capital investment for the island.
“Last fiscal year was all about quickly pivoting in light of the pandemic, which led InvestPR to support ongoing efforts and to prioritize Puerto Rico’s bioscience sector as a value-rich ally to support the U.S. critical supply chain. We built upon our strategy, yielding promising results, while also enabling a multipronged approach focused on increasing awareness about the island’s value proposition that boosted lead generation activities, and improved our ‘product,’ that being Puerto Rico’s competitiveness,” said Rodrick Miller, CEO of Invest Puerto Rico.
Miller also noted that multisectoral collaboration continued to be a driving force in InvestPR’s achievements. A partnership with the Department of Economic Development and Commerce, and collaborations with entities such as PRIDCO, Discover Puerto Rico, as well as NGOs such as ConPRmetidos, and professional organizations including the Mechanical Contractors Association and the Pharmaceutical Industry Association, have helped InvestPR move forward in its mission.
Fiscal Year in Review
In regard to further INCREASING AWARENESS of Puerto Rico’s value proposition for investors, InvestPR met and surpassed all marketing KPI targets: impressions (+334.12%), website Visits (+110.84%) and earned media (+984.60%). The effort was supported by the launch of a four-week advertising campaign, titled “Accelerate Success,” focused on the island’s bioscience legacy. The campaign launched on digital channels and generated over 9M impressions. It also accounted for 44% of all InvestPR pageviews since 2019.
The InvestPR website, an important tool in investment attraction efforts, was updated to include new content that resonates with potential investors. The site includes insightful information and data points about the island’s high-level competencies in bioscience, technology, logistics, professional services, and finance and insurance sectors.
To further amplify InvestPR’s messaging, the organization hosted eight virtual webinars, each of which underscored the island’s value proposition in the bioscience industry, technology and innovation, entrepreneurship space, creative industries, and others.
As for LEAD GENERATION, InvestPR engaged in over 45 tradeshows, conferences, and events, including major conferences such as SelectUSA, to capture foreign direct investment interest, Bio International, and South by Southwest. Miller noted that the organization also launched its East Coast Business Advisory Council to aid lead generation efforts. The implementation of tools such as Pitchbook and LinkedIn Sales Navigator further bolster InvestPR’s lead generation activities.
At the core of InvestPR’s mission lies the task of increasing Puerto Rico’s “product,” or COMPETITIVENESS, as an investment destination. To that end, the organization made great strides in refining its promotion plan with deep research on how changes to global tax law, COVID-19, and reshoring manufacturing change opportunities and approaches.
With the pandemic dominating the bioscience narrative, InvestPR led the planning and organization of the Pharma Industry Capabilities Tour, which showcased the island’s strengths as a global life sciences manufacturing hub to accelerate new investment opportunities in partnership with the federal government. This included a collaborative effort with the Pharmaceutical Industry Association to create a competitiveness report, “Benchmarking Puerto Rico’s Pharmaceutical Sector,” which will guide strategic planning of the sector.
Other achievements in this realm included the creation of three committees to aggregate the voice of the industry for three critical areas of competitiveness for Puerto Rico: Air Logistics, 5G, and IoT and Energy.
Miller expressed confidence that “the wheels of economic development are in motion. Our team, partners, and collaborators are aligned to elevating Puerto Rico’s viability as an investment destination. However, our achievements notwithstanding, there is still much work to do, and I cannot stress enough our commitment to accomplishing our mission.”
Looking to the new FY21-22, InvestPR will continue with its ongoing efforts and launch new initiatives. Among these are a new InvestPR brand and website, lead generation activities targeted at critical national and international destinations, sponsorship, and participation in professional events, as well as continuing to communicate, the recent launch of Impeller, a new online investment platform that connects issuers in Puerto Rico with local and global investors seeking investment opportunities. The platform has already amassed a large amount of investment interest in key sectors from early-stage companies, technology, opportunity zones, and renewable energy.
