Kickstart Ventures seeks potential Philippine unicorns with $200m fund

Philippine-based venture capital firm Kickstart Ventures said it seeks to support potential tech unicorns and help companies expand across Southeast Asia through its US$200 million fund, Manila Standard reported.

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“There is a 650-million person opportunity out there [in Southeast Asia]. We would like to see more Philippine companies thinking about the unmet needs across Southeast Asia, rather than just the Philippines,” Joan Yao, the vice president for investments at Kickstart Ventures, said in an interview with the local paper.

Launched in 2012, Kickstart Ventures is a wholly owned subsidiary of local telco Globe Telecom. It kicked off with US$2.4 million for its first fund, then closed a second fund at US$50 million.

The company, which invests in early-stage to growth-stage tech startups, has supported 42 companies globally, including 30 in the Philippines, the report said. Its investment interests include enterprise solutions, media, content, advertising, health care, smart living, as well as energy, water, and waste management.

The firm’s portfolio of companies include Wattpad, C88, and Coins.ph – which was acquired by Indonesian unicorn Gojek – among others.

In 2019, Ayala Corp., one of the major shareholders of Globe, announced that it would work with Kickstart Ventures by allocating US$150 million in venture capital initiatives. The fund aims to support startups in sectors such as on-demand services, internet of things, fintech, blockchain, ecommerce, AI, machine learning, robotics, big data and analytics, and cloud computing.

Yao said the fund is looking to pour US$2 million to US$10 million into series A to C companies globally through the fund. “The fund hopes to make its first investment in the second quarter of 2020,” she says.

According to the vice president, the potential of local companies to become unicorns depends on how fast Filipinos will adopt digital solutions.

“We still need to see more Filipinos come online and really become comfortable in transacting online and build this digital economy,” she said. “Another thing is that these companies need to expand outside the Philippines. Many of Southeast Asia’s unicorns have come from Indonesia and Singapore, and Malaysia has Grab.”

In 2017, the Philippines saw its first unicorn rise: real estate startup Revolution Precrafted. The company’s valuation reached over US$1 billion after closing its series B round co-led by Singapore-based K2.

According to a report, the small number of startups receiving funding in the country may be attributed partly to cultural and economic factors. The Philippines lags behind its Southeast Asian peers in VC investments, recording the smallest total funding raised by startups at US$28.8 million in 2018.