Hi, my name is Nestor, one of the founders of AMIMA.
Latin America is a very complex region. Most countries have limited access to dollars and their currencies suffer massive devaluations. The inflation is high, they have limited access to move money out of their home countries, and the majority of people end up being negatively impacted in their finances due to government mandates.
Crypto has become an alternative for people to have access to move their money as well as park their assets in more stable currencies than their home currencies. The issue lies in that people can get access to crypto and move it around, but they’re limited in how they can convert into fiat for daily use. Most countries are against crypto, so banks won’t touch funds related to this market, making it more difficult for people to cash in or benefit from using both traditional financial systems and decentralized ones.
Having experienced all of the above, AMIMA is born out of the desire to give access to people in Latin America to better saving and investing solutions. We want to democratize access by giving them:
A portal to open a bank account in the United States in USD. It will be with a regulated bank, so any transactions clients use from this institution won’t cause them problems with their local banks since it’s not a crypto exchange
Mechanism to receive crypto in their wallets and convert to fiat, as well as buy crypto in an easy way
They can send money to this account via wire transfer, crypto or debit/credit card, giving them multiple options to access dollars and crypto vs their home currencies
As we grow, we want to offer investment opportunities in this growing space through the different partners we work with. Since we have over 40 years combined experience in the financial markets as well as structuring products, we know the key players that create investment solutions to high net worth individuals
Retail clients are usually left wandering around, victim of multiple scams since the solid investments are reserved for wealthy individuals. We aim to change this by doing all of the regulatory heavy lifting on our side, and linking retail clients with better saving and investing options
We want to start offering a USD savings account where you can receive, buy and sell crypto if needed. We want to connect people to higher yields through different DeFi protocols and investment products, so they can have their money generating a higher yield, in a currency that doesn’t devaluate as the ones they currently use. Since most people have no clue how to use exchanges or manage crypto, we want to simplify the process and make it as easy as using Netflix or Instagram.
There’s also a big problem in countries like Chile, Peru and Argentina. Governments are unstable, and people are desperate to have assets outside their countries for protection. Their money loses massive value every day, so they are turning into crypto for a way to be able to transact. We have already spoken with different companies that want to work with crypto, but don’t have access to banking outside of their home countries, which we will be able to solve through AMIMA.
We already have the banking and crypto partners in the United States (all regulated), the company incorporated, relationships with regulated asset managers that structure investment products, tech team to develop both the mobile and desktop app, as well as the potential clients (both individuals and corporations), that can use AMIMA as a solution to buy/sell/get paid in crypto, access to a higher yield USD bank account, and US banking to be able to transact as they please and bypass their local restrictions.
We’ve spent months understanding the different problem areas, and integrating a solution using tech, banking expertise, crypto, defi, and the will to give better access to people to Latin America and connect them to this incredible digital world.
The problem we currently have is lack of funding. We spent over $50k developing the best set up and framework, but the investors we had interested in funding backed off after Luna and UST crashed since they got scared of the market. Even though we had other protocols and stable coins that we were going to use, the funding is gone and we have everything ready to go but no money to execute.
The money we want will be used to cover for the banking and tech setup, and have sufficient capital to run for 18 months. This will give us the flexibility to build up something solid in 3-4 months, and then begin onboarding clients. We expect to be profitable 5-6 months after launch, since once we’re active, we already have corporate clients interested in our solutions. The expected transaction volume from them is between $3-$5 million dollars, which will give us sufficient commission revenue to cover our monthly expenses.
In the event we achieve this rapidly, we will use the capital raised to invest in hiring new team members so help the growth, as well as expand faster into the different Latam countries. We are looking for people that believe in our idea and want to connect this gigantic part of the world with better financial solutions and give access to a region that has enormous growth potential, but is completely underserved in the digital assets space.