Block Dojo: Empowering Philippines startups for future growth

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The Philippines’ startup scene has been growing since 2020. In fact, according to StartupBlink, the nation is ranked sixth as the best country for startups in Southeast Asia and 60th worldwide. In addition, the Philippines saw a rise in startup funding from $180 million in 2020 to $863.7 million in 2021.

However, according to the Department of Information and Communications Technology’s (DICT) Undersecretary for e-government, David Almirol, and National Development Company’s Saturnino Mejia, the Southeast Asian country is still developing its startup scene, but this may change as more venture builders enter the tech startup space.

Government’s role in the PH startup ecosystem

“There’s a lot of very good ecosystem founded startup play in the Philippines, but we need more believers to our own highly intellectual startups,” Usec. Almirol told CoinGeek reporter Claire Celdran on the sidelines of Block Dojo Philippines’ Cohort 2 Investors Night.

The DICT official adds there must also be support from the government in this space. Although he shared that some startups have been trying to work with local governments, most fail due to the strict procurement laws of the Philippines. “That’s why we at the DICT—me personally—[we’re] advocating to give opportunity to our fellow startups because they have a lot of solutions,” he said.

As a piece of advice, Usec. Almirol voiced that new startups must choose the correct service and technology to prove they have a viable business and refrain from just introducing alternative solutions. Most importantly, he reiterates the need to have multiple revenue drivers.

“We need more Block Dojos. We need groups that actually empower the startups, not just give them opportunity, but a real way to expound and to really grow,” he said.

Philippines’ startup scene x private firms

CoinGeek also interviewed Saturnino Mejia, the assistant general manager of the National Development Company. He first shared that Block Dojo Philippines invited them to look at what Cohort 2 can offer and assess if they can be part of the NDC startup venture fund.

“We are funding startups. We are agnostic about the sector. We don’t care whether there’s fintech, logistics… What we wanted is really that these startups will be partly funded by their co-investment partners,” he explained.

Working directly with various local founders, Mejia commented that the Philippines startup landscape is “still very much early in the game.”

“Compared to, say, the more advanced countries in ASEAN. Even Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand are much further ahead than the Philippines,” he remarked. With this, Mejia suggests employing more training programs and support systems for startup founders to strengthen the industry rather than seeking capital funding.

Watch Block Dojo Philippines: Advancing diverse solutions to real-world problems