- Premium Content It takes our newsroom weeks - if not months - to investigate and produce stories for our premium content. You can’t find them anywhere else.
Jum Balea · · 5 min readPhilippines’ Edukasyon.ph and MariaHealth close funding rounds led by Gobi-Core fund
The Philippines-focused venture fund formed by China VC Gobi Partners and Manila-based Core Capital late last year has just announced its first two investments.
It led the pre-series A round of edtech startup Edukasyon.ph, as well as the seed round of health insurance marketplace MariaHealth. The companies are keeping mum about the funding amounts.
L-R: Core Capital partner Carlo Delantar, Gobi founding partner Thomas Tsao, MariaHealth’s Vincent Lau, Edukasyon.ph’s Henry Motte-Muñoz, Core Capital partner Jason Gaisano, and Core Capital managing partner Ken Ngo / Photo credit: Gobi-Core
The deals officially kick off Gobi’s Manila investments through Gobi-Core, which aims to deploy US$10 million for early-stage startups.
“With a population of 120 million, the Philippines is the second-largest country in Southeast Asia, but it has been overlooked by VCs. We think that’s about to change,” says Gobi founding partner Thomas Tsao.
Edukasyon.ph and MariaHealth will spend the money and tap Gobi’s network to scale up after seeing strong traction in their categories. Here’s the lowdown on the two companies.
Edukasyon.ph has a million users
The team’s mission, according to founder and CEO Henry Motte-Muñoz, is to help more than 20 million Filipino students aged 13 to 23 make informed choices about their education and career.
It does this by aggregating information about schools – including admission requirements, processes, and even things like financing – into one platform. It also offers advice so students can better understand how their educational choices fit into their job aspirations and what skills they need to increase employability.
“We basically looked at all the touch points in a student’s journey, from being in high school all the way to preparing for their first job,” says Muñoz, a French-Filipino who used to be based in Europe tackling M&A at companies like Goldman Sachs and Bain Capital.
Muñoz shares how he always had the desire to return to the Philippines and launch a venture there.
“I looked at a bunch of problems and education really stood out,” he tells Tech in Asia. “When we were starting in 2013, what we found is that if you didn’t fully address all the choices students have to make early on, you’re not setting them up for success.”
His idea seems to be working well. In 2018 Edukasyon.ph grew 100x to about 1 million monthly active users over two years. About 95 percent of that growth is said to be organic. “We’re spending very little money on advertising,” says Muñoz.
The startup earns by charging schools that “want to engage with students and get applicants” a monthly subscription to access its platform.
It also offers native ads to brands that want to capture the younger market.
MariaHealth expects 5x growth
Stay ahead in Asia’s tech landscape
This is premium content. Subscribe to read the full story.
These mark the first investments made by the fund, which is co-led by China VC Gobi Partners and Manila-based Core Capital.
We know this is not ideal. ⌛ Sign up in 20 seconds. Cancel anytime.
Our subscriber community includes professionals from these companies:
Stay updated on the go with our mobile app.
Get latest insights with smoother, more personalized experience through TIA mobile app.
