Journal Staff
The Guam Economic Development Authority’s Destinu Guåhan Venture Capital program has approved funding for four local business projects valued at roughly $6.3 million in matched venture capital funding.
This follows its inaugural $1 million plus investment in February 2025 to Fish Eye Marine Ventures, Inc. and Vertical Industries Inc. and a period where GEDA had to iron out the program’s legal documentation.
Christina Garcia, GEDA’s acting administrator, told the Journal that much of the paperwork issues stemmed from the newness of the program.
“When you go to an attorney, you go to an accountant, there is no accounting for a recording of any venture capital type programs on the island,” she said. “I mean people invest in their friend’s companies, but to be defined as an investment company, a venture capital company was brand new.”
Garcia said that during the process, Vertical Industries Inc. opted to pull out from the venture capital program, saying that the company put its agricultural hydroponic and aeroponic project on hold due to the U.S. tariffs against Canada and South Korea.
However, she said that Fish Eye is making the most of its $500,000 investment into the marine park. Fish Eye announced in August that it will be refurbishing eight viewing windows of its underwater observatory, the first-of-its-kind refurbishment since the park opened in 1996.
General manager of Fish Eye Marine Park, Akihiro Tani, told the Journal in an interview in February that the park will be reviving its Seawalker underwater helmet diving experience. Tani told the Journal that progress is underway.
“Currently we are waiting for [a] permit to install a new floating platform (pontoon) next to the underwater observatory access bridge,” he said. “We completed assembly of the new pontoon and are expecting to receive new helmet diving equipment in the middle of October.”
Tani said the target opening is for mid-November to early December.
Today, Garcia said that the four companies whose projects the program helped fund are the Aquarium of Guam, Pinpoint Guam Real Estate LLC, Tåsi Malt, and Tano Table Corp.
The projects were approved by GEDA’s board of directors in July, totaling about $13 million in total project investments between the companies and Destinu Guåhan.
The Aquarium of Guam (formerly Underwater World) at the Dusit Beach Resort Guam will be conducting a complete overhaul of its 319-foot-long aquarium tunnel in a multi-million dollar refurbishment project headed by an Australian company — Advanced Aquarium Technologies. Garcia said that Aquarium of Guam requested $11 million for the project and that Destinu Guåhan contributed $5 million to its investment.
The Aquarium of Guam announced Sept. 19 that the refurbishment represents “the largest single investment in the aquarium in over 26 years.”
Some of the highlights of the renovation include showcasing Guam’s aquatic heritage and promoting conservation and ecological awareness for island residents, students, and visitors according to the aquarium.
Ryan Mummert, president of Pinpoint Guam, told the Journal that the Destinu Guåhan investment would go towards supporting the second phase of its Geographic Information System-enabled database, known as REALFacts.
REALFacts is an online database that centralizes real estate documents like mortgages, deeds, and permits into one location. The system updates daily whenever a new document is recorded at the Department of Land Management. The database also highlights information like infrastructure, zoning, and risk.
Mummert said REALFacts is “a single source truth for land records. We’re digitizing and unifying Guam’s fragmented real estate records into one GIS-enabled database.”
He said the goal for the system is to “eliminate as many steps as possible” for property management and establish better market transparency for consumers, creditors, real estate professionals, and planners.
“[REALfacts would allow] faster, cheaper closings by eliminating duplicated title research and centralizing records, deals move faster with fewer surprises,” he said.
Historically, realtors would only have access to property records that they have personally sold, but with REALFacts, they now have access to searchable records for non-MLS transactions. Mummert says it gives realtors or private sellers a good benchmark to value their property.
Pinpoint requested $1.8 million for phase two of REALFact’s development and Destinu Guåhan program invested $882,000 in matched funding.
Phase two involves accelerated platform development, which includes the automation of data ingestion and indexing, Mummert said. It will also include the expansion of data coverage and open the public portal so that it is more accessible to stakeholders.
The final two investments Destinu Guåhan made were both for projects valued at $100,000 each and the program invested $49,000 into both projects.
Andrew Park, vice president of Pacific Produce Corp., sought $100,000 for a new venture called Tåsi Malt, to establish a whisky shop, a first of its kind business on Guam according to Park.
He told the Journal that the business intends on capitalizing on the up-and-coming Asian market of whisky tasters and envisions Guam to be a cost-effective whisky destination in the region. In places like South Korea, import taxes on whisky can be as high as 70%, he said.
Down the line Park hopes to open a whisky experience/tasting venue.
Garcia said that Tano Table Corp., which also received funding, aims to open a new kind of family style kitchen and restaurant to add more options of Asian homestyle breakfast cuisine.
There are two to three more projects in line to be presented before GEDA’s board of directors for venture capital funding Garcia said, and word of the program is starting to reach more potential investors.
“What’s happening now is that, [the program] is world of mouth. So now people are getting more excited … I’ve been seeing more applications come through,” she said.
Funding for Destinu Guåhan is part of a $58.6 million allocation by the Department of Treasury through the State Small Business Credit Initiative to operate a loan guarantee, collateral support, and an equity/venture capital program. Garcia said that the funding is issued in three tranches.
The venture capital portion of the program initially had $10 million in direct funding but Garcia says that GEDA will request an additional $10 million for venture capital funding. The authority is now getting ready to request its second tranche from the SSBCI program which is expected to be $19 million. mbj
