Dale W Wood
Dale W Wood is the founder and investor behind Dale Ventures—venture capital an investment holding company headquartered in Dubai. Dale Ventures’ portfolio includes companies operating in the space of business and finance, media and tech, consumer services, and real estate.
Wood, a Costa Rican national, had been in the venture capital domain for more than twenty years before founding Dale Ventures in February 2017.
About Dale W Wood
Background
Dale Wood graduated from Texas A&M University with a dual Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) degree in marketing and management in 1993. He financed his degrees by working at Cafe Eccell throughout his studies. He then went on to study for his MBA in International Business at the Edwin L. Cox School of Business, a constituent college of Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas. During his MBA studies, Wood spent many months abroad at Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM), Mexico, where he took business classes and learnt about the Latin American culture.
In 1995, after achieving his MBA, Wood joined Texas Industries, a manufacturer of heavy construction materials, as a marketing specialist. There, he launched the company’s website, which was one of the first construction company websites in the world. This brief stint with the nascent internet space set the tone of his career.
In 1997, he joined Kforce Inc., a Florida-based professional staffing firm, where he began as an IT recruiter and quickly became a team lead. Between 1999 and 2007, Wood held a diverse range of roles from investor to COO, CEO, president, and founder at various growth-oriented startups and companies in Costa Rica, Panama, and Mexico. Nearly all of these companies had internet-based business models. As startups do, some of them failed while others scaled. During this period Wood gained ample experience in recognizing startups with the potential for long-term growth.
In 2007, Dale Wood became President and CEO of HealthYes! Preventive Screening, a provider of mobile preventive health screenings for chronic diseases. After leading the company for three years he went on to become President and CEO of a digital marketing consulting company named Netualize. Located in Huston, Texas, Netualize provided outsourced solutions to some of the largest revenue-generating sites on the web.
In 2017, Wood founded Dale Ventures – FZE, a personal investment holding group with its primary office in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Dale Ventures primarily invests in financial and business services, technology and media, real estate, and consumer and retail businesses.
Location
Though Dale Ventures is headquartered in Dubai, UAE, it has offices around the globe in Costa Rica, Panama, and the Bahamas as well as London, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
Though Dale Ventures is headquartered in Dubai, UAE, it has offices around the globe in Costa Rica, Panama, and the Bahamas as well as London, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
Remarkable Investments
In January 2016 Dale Venture invested $1 million in Arcadier as part of their seed funding round. Arcadier is a world leading online marketplace builder. It offers white-label solutions to entrepreneurs, startups, enterprises, and governments that need to create their own marketplace.
In the same year Dale Ventures also invested $1 million in Rayo Credit, a Costa Rico based online loan disbursement and repayment company that specializes in small and quick loans. In addition to this seed investment, Dale Wood also consulted on technical issues and business development. When Rayo Credit penetrated the Colombian market, Dale Ventures became the lead investor in the company by investing an additional $500,000 and committing up to $5 million in November 2017.
Latest news
In May 2019 Dale W Wood became an early investor in TechMet Limited, a private metals company launched by industry veteran Brian Menell. Wood put up a seed investment of more than $500,000. TechMet currently has controlling shares and significant minority stakes in technology metal supply chain projects such as US Vanadium, Li-Cycle, Brazilian Nickel, Tinco, and Rainbow Rare Earths.
In September 2017 Dale Ventures invested $1 million in the seed funding round of Instanda, a digital engagement, distribution, and underwriting platform for insurance providers. In 2020 Dale Wood decided to increase his investment in Instanda by £5.8 million. By making use of top-class artificial intelligence systems, Instanda has become Europe’s top provider of insurance underwriting offerings.