By News Americas Business News Writer
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. May 1, 2026: When Felicia J. Persaud left Georgetown, Guyana, in 1996 to build a new life in the United States, she carried with her something no immigration officer could stamp out – an unwavering belief that the Caribbean deserved better access to the global economy.
Nearly three decades later, that belief has become a platform, a portfolio of companies, and now, a Nasdaq graduation.
On April 30, 2026, Persaud – founder and CEO of ICN Group and the newly launched AI Capital Exchange – graduated with honors from the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center’s Milestone Circles program, an intensive 12-week initiative that has supported over 6,300 entrepreneurs since its founding five years ago.
“This program pushed me into answering my why, and my why remains solving the problem of lack of access to capital in emerging markets like the Caribbean and Latin America,” Persaud said.
Persaud was part of Cohort Group 32: Circles 513, 514 & 515, alongside 28 fellow entrepreneurs from across the United States. The program, run by the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center – which has accelerated resilient growth for under-resourced founders worldwide since 2015 – focuses on helping founders build, scale, and lead with purpose.
Building a Bridge to $5.7 Trillion
During the 12-week program, Persaud used the mentorship and structure to sharpen her investor pitch for AI Capital Exchange – a platform she built herself, as a non-technical founder, in just over four months, using artificial intelligence.
The platform is already live. AI Capital Exchange pre-qualifies borrowers and connects them to institutional investors, lenders, and investment agencies globally. To date, it has filtered over $200 million in deals – what Persaud calls “whale filtering” – serving as a bridge to the U.S. $5.7 trillion capital market.
It is, by her own description, the world’s first AI-powered debt capital platform of its kind.
Persaud is now seeking a minimum seed round of USD $500,000 to fuel the platform’s next phase of growth. The platform has already gained international recognition, having been accepted into the HICool competition after participating in the India AI Challenge in January 2026.
Paying It Forward to the Caribbean
True to her roots as an advocate for Caribbean communities, Persaud is not keeping the lessons of Nasdaq’s Milestone Circles to herself.
In conjunction with her graduation, she is releasing a free list of Caribbean accelerators currently open for Caribbean entrepreneurs – available at investcaribbeannow.com/caribbean-accelerators.
“I am now paying it forward,” she said.
Decade Plus Journey Built On The Caribbean
Persaud’s journey from Georgetown to Nasdaq is the kind of immigrant story that defines Caribbean America.
A former journalist and advocate, she went on to found NewsAmericasNow.com – the Caribbean diaspora’s leading daily news source- along with CaribPR Wire, Hard Beat Communications, and Invest Caribbean, all under her ICN Group umbrella.
She is listed in the U.S. State Department Speakers Database as a Caribbean expert, has been quoted by AP, CNN, BBC, the New York Times, Reuters, the Washington Post, Forbes, and dozens of other global outlets, and holds a weekly immigration column in the New York Amsterdam News – one of America’s oldest African American newspapers.
She is also the founder of the Hard to Beat podcast.
For a woman who arrived in the United States 30 years ago with a journalist’s instinct and an entrepreneur’s hunger, the Nasdaq milestone is not an endpoint. It is, as her platform suggests, a pre-qualification for what comes next. Caribbean entrepreneurs can access the free Caribbean accelerator list at investcaribbeannow.com/caribbean-accelerators. Learn more about AI Capital Exchange at aicapitalexchange.c