Gobi Partners bets on the Philippines with $10m fund tie-up

High-rise condos, older apartment blocks, and landed housing in Manila’s Fort Bonifacio district / Photo credit: donsimon / 123RF Stock Photo.

Shanghai-based venture capital firm Gobi Partners has teamed up with a local VC in the Philippines for a US$10 million fund aimed at the nation’s startups.

The fund with Manila-based Core Capital will invest in seed and pre-series A companies engaged in the areas of ecommerce, health tech, and logistics, among others.

It will expand its focus to include other sectors like travel, entertainment, and retail tech in the future.

This marks Gobi’s first foray into the Philippines, where “we’ve been consistently amazed by the level of entrepreneurial talent,” says founding partner Thomas Tsao.

“The same [startup] growth patterns that occurred in China and Indonesia are now happening in the Philippines,” Tsao adds.

The Philippines’ startup scene has largely been overlooked by investors in favor of wealthier and more attractive markets like Singapore and Indonesia.

But that’s slowly changing with focused efforts like Gobi’s and high-profile overseas investments that shine a spotlight on the country. Chinese tech giant Tencent recently bought a stake in local tech firm Voyager – its first investment in the Philippines – and this follows Alibaba-backed Ant Financial’s maiden investment in Voyager’s rival, Mynt.

Apart from providing funding support, Gobi will advise Core Capital on investments and share some notes on the best practices in fund administration.

Core Capital is a new VC based in the Philippines co-founded by Carlo Delantar, the country director of Waves for Water, an international non-profit organization that brings clean water to remote communities.