Discuss: State of the Philippine startup scene

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Discuss features short but strong and insightful opinions on interesting startup, entrepreneurship, and tech topics. Got a topic or question to suggest? Drop us an email.

The Philippines recently saw its first billion-dollar startup with Revolution Precrafted, but despite being Southeast Asia’s second largest country by population, the local startup scene is still relatively quiet.

In comparison to its neighbors around the region, there’s still much to improve in terms of government support, funding, and internet speeds.

To find out more, we asked some people from the local tech ecosystem for their thoughts.

Editor’s note: Answers have been edited for clarity.

 Justin Hall, principal at Golden Gate Ventures

There are a number of factors that may be hindering the growth of startups in the Philippines, but I would say the following are perhaps the most critical:

• Corporates are either useless or predatory, going beyond mere incompetence to actually being detrimental to local startups and entrepreneurs
• There are few technology “leaders” that entrepreneurs can aspire to (though this is beginning to change)
• There is a lack of regional investor interest

However, on a fundamental level, I think the Philippines is ready to break out, and I expect many more successful companies to come out in 2018-2019.

We’re bullish at Golden Gate Ventures, and expect to do more there in the next few months. But I think it will be quite some time before we see another unicorn in the Philippines, and I would consider the existing unicorn more as an aberration of funding than a natural progression from pre-seed to seed, seed to series A, etc. Revolution Precrafted was already, by most measures, a successful company when it raised VC funding.

Let’s discuss: