Guyana is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, yet many strong local businesses still struggle to finance their next stage of growth. That contradiction has a name: the capital gap. This article explains what it is, why it exists in a booming economy, and what it means for a business owner ready to expand.
What the capital gap is
The capital gap is the distance between the funding a growing business needs and the funding available to it in-country. A company may have signed contracts, proven demand, and a clear expansion plan, and still find that no local institution is set up to finance it at the scale required. The opportunity is real, the business is sound, and the capital to seize the moment is out of reach. Multiplied across an economy, that gap slows the growth of exactly the companies best placed to lead it.
Why it exists in a booming economy
Guyana's transformation began offshore. ExxonMobil made its first significant oil discovery in 2015, production started in December 2019, and recoverable resources are now estimated at more than 11 billion oil-equivalent barrels.1 The economy responded with historic growth. The IMF recorded an average real GDP growth rate of about 47 percent per year from 2022 through 2024, the highest in the world, with the non-oil economy expanding by more than 13 percent in 2024 alone.2 Construction, agriculture, mining, and services are all growing quickly, and each of those sectors is full of companies that need capital to keep pace with demand.
The financial system has not expanded at the same rate. Guyana's banks remain well-capitalized and sound, and their lending has concentrated in construction, services, and consumer credit.3 Commercial banks are built to lend against collateral within retail frameworks, which leaves larger and more complex growth financing outside their range. As the local market is often described, if you added up all the money in the country, it still would not be enough to finance the country's transformation. The demand for capital has simply grown faster than the domestic supply of it.
Who feels it most
The gap falls hardest on established, mid-sized companies: the family businesses and founder-led firms that have operated successfully for a decade or more and are now ready to scale. They are too large for microfinance and too capital-hungry for a standard commercial loan, yet they lack the direct relationships with international investors that would unlock larger financing. Their contracts are on the table and their capital is locked. These are often the very businesses with the track record and discipline that investors want, which makes the gap especially costly to the economy as a whole.
What the gap costs the economy
An unfilled capital gap is not only a problem for individual owners. When capable companies cannot finance their growth, the economy loses the jobs they would have created, the goods and services they would have supplied, and the competition they would have brought to their sectors. In a moment when Guyana is building rapidly and importing much of what it needs, a local company that cannot scale is a missed chance to keep more of that value in-country. Closing the gap is part of making sure the growth translates into a broad-based, durable private sector rather than a narrow boom.
How the gap is being addressed
Several channels are widening. IDB Invest, the private-sector arm of the Inter-American Development Bank, has approved more than USD $260 million for projects in Guyana since 2020, a large increase on prior years.4 The government passed the Guyana Development Bank Act in 2026 to expand financing for smaller enterprises, backed by an initial capitalization of more than USD $200 million.3 These measures help, and they are aimed largely at either smaller businesses or specific projects. They do not fully close the gap for mid-market companies seeking structured growth capital in the millions.
That is the space NewHayven was built to fill. We structure, organize, and deploy capital, connecting Guyanese businesses with the global resources they need to grow, compete, and transform. Where a commercial bank sees a loan that does not fit and a foreign investor sees a market they cannot read, a merchant bank sees a company worth backing and builds the structure to back it. If your business has outgrown what local lenders can offer, the capital gap is not the end of the conversation. It is where the conversation with a merchant bank begins.