Guide links Filipino women

Guide links Filipino women-led startups with investors

MANILA, Philippines — A group of investors in the Philippines has launched a new investment map and directory to connect Filipino women-led businesses with prospective investors, as women entrepreneurs worldwide continue to receive only a small fraction of startup funding.

About $1.5 billion was invested in Philippine startups last year, equivalent to roughly 19 percent of startup funding across Southeast Asia. However, only about 3.6 percent of funding globally goes to women-led enterprises.

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That disparity is what the Gender-Smart Investing Directory and Map of the Philippines aims to address by providing a publicly accessible platform that brings together women-led businesses, investors and other organizations supporting gender-focused investments.

It was created by Kerubin Capital, a capital fund dedicated to women-led businesses backed by the Manila Angel Investors Network, one of the Philippines’ largest private investor groups with more than 30 portfolio companies.

More than 200 entities had already signed up for the directory. Qualified businesses and organizations can list themselves for free.

Users can search the map for participating founders, investors and other organizations within the “gender-smart” investment ecosystem, including where they are located and the category they fall under.

“The gender financing gap in the Philippines is, in large part, an information gap,” said Tina Di Cicco, managing partner and CEO of Kerubin Capital. “There is capital that wants to reach women-led businesses and there are women-led businesses ready for that capital. They simply could not see each other.”

“This map changes that,” she added. “For the first time, a woman founder in Cebu or Davao can find, in minutes, the investors who are actively looking for companies like hers.”

Di Cicco said that, eventually, the company wants to lift women-led businesses’ share of available capital closer to 30 percent.

Further, Di Cicco said greater gender diversity could also benefit businesses themselves. She cited data showing that gender-balanced organizations can outperform their peers financially by 20 percent to 25 percent.

Male-owned or male-led businesses may also be considered gender-smart on the platform, she added.

Under these criteria, companies may qualify based on female ownership, women’s representation in leadership and employment or whether their products disproportionately benefit women.

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The investment map and directory were launched with support from Investing in Women, an initiative of the Australian government.

Di Cicco said the Philippine platform could eventually be replicated elsewhere in Southeast Asia, with Indonesia and Vietnam among the potential next markets. INQ