2 homegrown startups shine in Hong Kong tilt

Carmina Bayombong, InvestEd founder —ATEC PHOTOS

Philippine startups continue to show what they can do to bring innovation to people’s lives—and their hard work is not left unnoticed.

At the latest Asia Technology Entrepreneurship Conference (Atec) Startup Competition in Hong Kong this month, two Filipino enterprises were recognized as the region’s best innovators in their respective categories.

InvestEd, a financing platform that lends to students who need aid in paying tuition, won in the artificial intelligence and digital solutions category.

The company, employing a proprietary credit-scoring algorithm, extends loans to unbanked students, making financing accessible. It targets the students who are part of the socioeconomic classes C, D and E. According to its website, InvestEd has helped thousands of students from 2,162 universities across 64 provinces.

“InvestEd envisions a world where every young dreamer has no barriers to success,” the company says.

InvestEd was founded by Carmina Bayombong, who holds an industrial engineering degree from the University of the Philippines. She has devoted her time to training the youth in financial literacy and entrepreneurship.

Bayombong was recognized as Forbes Asia’s 30 Under 30 honoree for finance and venture capital in 2021. In 2019, she was also named as the South Asia and Oceanian laureate at the Cartier Women’s Initiative awards.

Sari-sari store enabler Packworks, meanwhile, emerged as the winner in the smart commerce and logistics category.

Packworks provides digital solutions to over 300,000 sari-sari stores so they can make their operations more efficient. Its suite of products includes tools for pricing, inventory management and sales tracking.

“We aim to provide constant ways to improve the country’s supply chain through accessible and scalable technology that empowers small business owners that drives progress and inclusivity,” says the company on its website.

The trio of Hubert Yap, Bing Tan and Ibba Bernardo brought Packworks into reality in 2018. The founders initially wanted a solution that would link multinational companies to sari-sari stores. But they eventually decided to focus on microentrepreneurs instead after realizing how technology can change the way they operate for the better.

Backed by Harvard Club

Atec is the biggest alumni-led technology conference in Asia. The annual startup competition celebrates the excellence of enterprises that develop new and cutting-edge products.

In this year’s competition, the 40-member selection committee screened 106 applications, whereby 32 semifinalists were shortlisted.

FETED Packworks CEO Bing Tan (center) receives the Atec award (smart commerce and logistics category).

A startup can join the competition after getting a nomination from an alumni organization that is part of Atec. In this case, both InvestEd and Packworks were backed by the Harvard Club of the Philippines Global.

Last year, homegrown Mayani won the Emerging Market Solutions Impact Award. A social enterprise linking over 139,000 smallholder farmers to retail and commercial consumers, this startup has helped a lot of indigenous farmers in Zambales.

According to a study by local market research firm Uniquecorn Strategies, the majority or 75 percent of the Philippine startups were keen on achieving profitability over growth to reduce dependency on investor funding.

Next on the list of priorities are customer experience and product development at 55 percent each.

More than half or 55 percent of the founders surveyed expect to become profitable within the next one to two years. INQ