US-Based Plug&Play Launches New Accelerator Program for Philippine Startups
At least 40 Philippine startups every year are poised to gain support from potential investors, following the launch of a new startup accelerator program in the country.
The program, which is a partnership between the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the United States-based innovation platform Plug and Play, will essentially connect startups to venture capital firms across the globe, and in the long run, attract foreign direct investments. Beneficiaries will also receive mentoring and education.
Plug and Play Philippines co-founder Jojo Flores said they are planning to start with the services industry, which has virtually no access to any accelerator program. Flores is one of this year's honorees in Esquire's annual Startup Trailblazers List.
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Special focus will be given to startups involved in technology, such as information technology (I.T.), business process outsourcing (BPO), and electronics industries. Cybersecurity and artificial intelligence (AI) will also be prioritized, as well as agriculture and food technologies for food security.
Flores highlighted the need to help such industries, saying they “know what they want, but they don’t have the technical skills to identify [and] build solutions.”
“These solutions will be built, anyway, in the world, so why should we be waiting? And why [should] these solutions [come] from other countries when we can build them here?” Flores said, noting the importance of the country having its own intellectual property (IP).
The 40 startups will be curated, following an evaluation of their “problem statements.” The accelerator program, which looks to market these young companies to the global market, will run for six months for the first 20 firms, and the same for the other half.
Plug and Play Philippines said current funds from sponsors will last for two years, but it hopes to keep the initiative running for at least five years.
The platform invests around $25 million or P1.4 billion on startups across the globe every year, according to Flores. Listed I.T. solutions provider DFNN, Inc.—one of Plug and Play’s partners in the program—will also help with funding.
For the DTI's part, Secretary Alfredo Pascual said the agency will house startups that would need access to individual and co-working spaces.
