Impact Hub opens its doors to Manila startups

There are many incubation programs, events, and coworking spaces for startups in the Philippines, but you don’t find all three in one hub.

Enter Impact Hub.

Established in London in 2005, Impact Hub opened its Manila branch this month with the aim of building a community of entrepreneurs and equipping them with the necessary tools to help them make a difference in society.

It was brought to the Philippines by co-founders Lizan Kuster, Mathias Jaeggi and Ces Rondario, who met through Impact Hub’s global mailing network.

“The foundation of all Impact Hubs is the community. Everything we do is focused on allowing the community of entrepreneurs to collaborate and grow both as a network but also as individual enterprises,” explains Kuster. “We are a global movement because we believe that impact can not happen in isolation but requires collective action.”

Three pillars

That’s why Impact Hub Manila operates on three pillars: coworking, events, and incubation.

Kuster says they recognize how entrepreneurs work long hours, normally isolated at home or in a noisy environment such as a coffee shop. The new coworking space – located in the arts and entertainment hotel Green Sun, in the premier business district of Makati City – provides an alternative.

Impact Hub Manila offers five affordable and flexible membership types based on different needs. Alongside this, it offers “connect membership,” which gets an entrepreneur member-exclusive event perks, exclusive member prices to rent the event space, and access to connect virtually to the community of Impact Hubbers around the globe.

“Since the network is so inclusive, we have the connect membership so everyone who fits the community can join,” says Kuster.

What is a network without opportunities to mingle? This is where events, the second pillar, play a role. Impact Hub Manila hosts different events that promote holistic entrepreneurial development. It debuted the “FuckUp Nights” series in the Philippines, where failures are celebrated and shared by industry leaders. On the flipside, it also holds “NailedIt Nights” for commemorating achievements. To help members develop their enterprises in different fields of business, Impact Hub Manila also invites experts to conduct workshops called “Mentor Mondays”. Aside from their branded events, the space is also available for rent for organizations looking for a venue to conduct their meetings and other functions.

Finally, Kuster says they will hold starting September an incubation program, the Impact Hub Fellowship, which is designed to attract, select, and support early-stage entrepreneurs and help them realize their innovations. Each fellowship runs for one year and gets implemented together with a partner organization, such as World Wide Fund, in order to further foster the growth of these enterprises.