Let’s kick off 2014 with a review about the Startup investments that happened in 2013 here in the Philippines. Who were the key players making investments in Philippine based Startups?
Please note, I listed only investors & funds that actually made an investment in 2013. Simply talking about it doesn’t count in my book.
First, let’s have a look at the foreign funds that invested in local Startups:
Golden Gate Ventures — Singapore based fund; founded by Jeff Paine and Vinnie Lauria; recently invested in local Startup Ayannah (founded by Mikko Perez).
Siemer Ventures — Los Angeles based fund with an outpost in Singapore. It is not difficult to arrange a meeting with Eric Manlunas (one of the founders), he is quite often in Manila. The fund invested recently in local Startups Kalibrr (founded by Paul Rivera), Ayannah and Twitmusic (founded by Stefano Fazzini & Christian Fazzini).
Omidyar Network — investment fund established by Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar. Invested recently in Kalibrr and previously also in Lenddo (Co-founded by Richard Eldridge). Rumors are that the fund might open soon an office in SEA (besides its current office in India) to ramp up its investments in South-East-Asia.
Jungle Ventures — Singapore based fund; founded by Amit Anand; recently invested in local Startup Twitmusic.
500Startups — Mountain View, CA, based seed fund & accelerator, invested recently in local Startups Twitmusic and PayrollHero (founded by Stephen Jagger & Mike Stephenson). The fund recently opened an office in Jakarta, Malaysia and its regional fund manager Khailee Ng is scouting actively in Manila.
JFDI — Singapore based accelerator; so far 4 Startups from the Phillippines made it into the 100-day long program. Part art of the recent batch were Qwikwire & Collabspot, while the other 2 Startups no longer exist.
Pollenizer — Australia based Startup builder; founded by Phil Morle; co-invested with Kickstart Ventures to build local Startup Trueproperty.
Now, let’s have a look at the local investors and funds:
Hatchd — local investment firm, managed by Manny Ayala & Nix Nolledo.
Nix Nolledo — besides investing through Hatchd, Nix is also a very active Angel investor. Make sure you pitch to him at his favourite spot — a quite corner in the lobby of Manila Pen.
Martin Pascual — local Angel; invests in local Startups through his corporate VC fund, Nest; reported 6 Startup investments in 2013.
Kickstart Ventures — Very active seed-stage investment fund backed by Globe Telecom and Ayala Corp. (I am a co-founder of the fund, trust me when I say we are busy investing); 7 new investment & 3 follow-on investments in 2013;
In addition, we got two local Incubators nurturing promising ideas:
Ideaspace — MVP backed foundation, runs an annual competition from which it selects 10 ideas for a six-month long incubation program.
Launchgarage — run by Kickstart & Proudcloud. Selects every year 4 to 6 Startups for its 6-month long incubation program.
Watch out for the new kid on the block - ManilaAngels, a Manila-based private network of Angel investors.
