4 Philippine startups that successfully raised funds in 2013

Last year, Tech in Asia noted how accelerators have increased their presence in Asia. But this year has been special for a different reason: Several Philippine startups received funding. The startup scene in the Philippines just started to really blossom in the past year or two. So seeing Philippine startups getting recognized by global investors is a good sign.

As the year comes to a close, we decided to do a quick annual round-up of the startups in the Philippines who caught the attention of investors.

PayrollHero

Funding announcement: February 2013

Before PayrollHero officially launched, it pitched and won second place at Tech in Asia’s Startup Arena Jakarta. It shared how it promotes employees’ work productivity and happiness through its web- and mobile-based biometrics.

Then, early this year, the startup successfully raised around $1 million seed funding from international investors such as 500 Startups, LX Ventures, The Futura Corporation, and others. It also revealed plans to expand in Southeast Asia.

PayrollHero continued to earn recognition this year as they emerged as one of the winners in the annual pitching competition ON3. It is also continuing to develop its platform. One of the additional features it added to the platform this year was analytics, through which both the administrators and employees can track attendance patterns during different weather situations. It also considers itself the king of selfies, with over 700,000 photo captures as of this month.

Given the rate of PayrollHero’s progress – it’s been active just over one year – we sure expect more surprises from the startup next year.

Ayannah

Funding announcement: June 2013

Founded in 2010, Ayannah is a gift-remittance service for unbanked overseas Filipino workers. Cash remittance services are one of the mainstream options for overseas workers outside the Philippines. This is exactly the reason why Ayanna stood out.

Through Sendah and Sendah Direct, overseas workers can now send cash and physical goods such as toys, gift packs, medicines, gift certificates and even phone credits to friends and family back home. Its service is already deployed in around 7,000 retail outlets in the Philippines and it has processed over one million overseas transactions.

Just this June, it received a $1 million round of funding led by Siemer Ventures and Golden Gate Ventures. Following the funding, it set its sights towards expanding to new markets and maintaining revenue growth in the domestic Philippine market.

Lenddo

Kalibrr