Kickstart: “Only” incubator in Philippines with “existing strong ties” to community

Startup incubator Kickstart has launched in the Philippines last month, part of a recent spate of new accelerators that have set up shop in the country. It is now calling for submissions for startups who want to receive an investment.

Christian Besler, the incubator’s vice-president and community engagement head, bills Kickstart as “the only Incubator in the Philippines with existing strong ties to the local grassroot community.”

Explaining this, he says that Kickstart was part of the team that organized last year’s StartupWeekend Manila, the first such event in the country.

They received feedback from the startup community that there was hardly any local support network and access to funding from Filipino entrepreneurs were limited.

“The outcome of the 2011 Startup Weekend event was pretty overwhelming and led to the decision to build an institution capable of funding and mentoring emerging startups and founders,” he says.

The situation is slowly changing. Another incubator, IdeaSpace, launched in the country at around the same time as Kickstart, and aims to “jumpstart the creation of a Silicon Valley-like ecosystem in the Philippines”.

Other accelerators and incubators that have started recently include Wireless Wings, and Launchgarage (a partnership between Kickstart and Proudcloud).

For Kickstart, they are planning to invest about 10M Pesos (US$250K) per startup, with exceptions made if warranted. They are starting off with 100M Pesos (US$2.5M) in deployable funds.

Startups are encouraged but not required to stay on premises, but that would depend on its stage of development and specific needs. Kickstart will also not focus on a particular set of industries, but ” rather on innovative and maybe also disruptive mobile and web solutions.”

The incubator is open to citizens and non-citizens alike, although they must be based in the country.