Kickstart Ventures targets 12 startup investments

KICKSTART Ventures, Inc., the corporate venture capital arm of Globe Telecom, Inc., is on track to fund at least 12 startups by the end of the year, with a growing focus on electronic commerce and artificial intelligence (AI).

- By Beatriz Marie D. Cruz

“We invested in seven companies in total this year,” Joan Yao, general partner at Kickstart Ventures, told BusinessWorld in an interview. “These are follow-on investments.”

The firm has backed startups across industries such as cybersecurity, food and beverage, e-commerce, telecommunications, AI and business-to-business e-commerce.

Since its founding in 2012, Kickstart has invested P2.15 billion in Philippine startups. Its portfolio now includes about 70 local and foreign companies, among them Pickup Coffee, coins.ph, Kumu, Skillshare, RuralNet and edamama.