Aaron Dancel
The Art of Opening Doors
From humble beginnings in the Philippines to New York’s equestrian circles, the entrepreneur is building an emerging private equity firm through fundraising, investor relationships, and hands-on work with businesses.
Aaron Dancel divides his time between his Palm Beach residence, an apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, and Atlantis Trident’s office in Chicago. Born on June 10, 1984, Dancel came from humble beginnings in the Philippines. His life today is far removed from that early chapter. Between those two chapters came immigration, business ownership, and years spent running a contact-center operation.
Now a cofounder and managing partner of Atlantis Trident Equity Ventures, Dancel is applying that operating experience to private equity. His responsibilities span raising capital, developing investor relationships, and working directly with the businesses the firm backs.
Atlantis Trident’s current assets under management stand at $23 million, alongside a separate, recently finalized $85 million institutional close. The transaction marks a new chapter for an up-and-coming firm with bold ambitions across real estate, decentralized finance, and crypto.
Dancel’s route into that world began with an operating business. He founded Ink Shared Solutions and spent seven years as its chief executive, growing the contact-center company to hundreds of agents. The work meant managing teams, serving clients, and taking responsibility for an organization’s daily performance.
At Atlantis Trident, those responsibilities have broadened. Alongside understanding how businesses operate, he has to explain the firm’s investment proposition and build relationships with people willing to consider backing it.
New York’s equestrian community became an important part of that effort. Dancel developed relationships with affluent families involved in the sport and made introductions to prospective investors. His outreach also extended to institutional investors.
It is a personal route into fundraising, built through relationships developed beyond the office. The introduction gets a conversation started; the work that follows involves explaining the opportunity, answering questions, and maintaining the relationship as discussions progress.
Riding is part of Dancel’s life in its own right. His equestrian training has included jumping at Old Salem Farm. It also connects him to a community that became relevant to his business career, giving a shared interest a place in the story of how he developed his investor network.
“I always find my peace around horses these days,” Dancel says.
His three-city routine provides the setting for that work. Palm Beach is his home base, New York is home to his Upper East Side apartment, and Chicago houses Atlantis Trident’s office. Business travel takes him farther afield, including to Paris, where the firm says meetings during VivaTech preceded its announced equity partnership with Tiva Properties.
That partnership offers a concrete view of Atlantis Trident’s approach. The firm described Tiva as a property-technology business and outlined plans to support growth, market expansion, and organizational development alongside its equity investment.
For Dancel, this is where fundraising connects with operating experience. Bringing investors into a firm is one responsibility. Working with the businesses it backs is another, drawing on the practical experience he gained while running his own company.
Atlantis Trident’s interests in real estate, decentralized finance, and crypto give it a broad investment agenda. Making that agenda understandable to prospective investors—and translating it into work with individual businesses—is part of the task ahead.
Away from company announcements, Dancel’s own writing offers a quieter glimpse of his life. In an essay about building multiple companies, he described cycling through Paris at night without a fixed route. Alongside equestrian training, it adds a personal detail to a career otherwise told through businesses, meetings, and financing milestones.
His immigrant journey remains the larger frame. From humble beginnings in the Philippines, he built a service business and moved into an industry where access to capital and the ability to earn investor confidence carry considerable weight.
Atlantis Trident is still developing its track record. Dancel’s role in that development brings together the strands of his career so far: the experience of an operator, the relationships of a fundraiser, and the hands-on responsibilities of working with businesses. The introductions have opened conversations. What the firm builds next will give those conversations their lasting significance.