Talino Venture Labs eyes stake in state-run startup fund

A company is willing to commit $1 million in a government-led startup venture fund, after investing millions of dollars in a number of startups last year.

Talino Venture Labs, headed by former PLDT top official Winston Damarillo, is willing to invest in the Startup Venture Fund, which will be managed by the Department of Trade and Industry.

The venture fund was created through the Innovative Startup Act, a law approved by Malacañang in April last year. The fund, the law read, will be used to match investments by selected investors to startups based in the Philippines.

“We are ready to invest up to a million dollars but we don’t know their guidelines yet,” Damarillo, chief executive officer of Talino Venture Labs, said in a recent interview.

Talino, which carries with it Damarillo’s experience in Silicon Valley, invests $1 million in each startup it’s interested in, in exchange for equity in the company. These startups, however, have to be a so-called inclusive business, or designed to benefit disadvantaged or marginalized sectors.

Among the startups Talino invested in last year is Asenso, which offers capital and microinsurance to sari-sari stores and “agripreneurs.”

Not every new and small company is necessarily a startup. It has to have an innovative and scalable model, usually taking advantage of technology, according to Katrina Rausa Chan, director of Qbo Innovation Hub, the country’s first public-private initiative for startups.

Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez previously said that state-owned firm National Development Co. (NDC) would also invest in select startups, therefore making the government part owner of the budding business.

Lopez is chair of NDC, the government’s investment arm. While the guidelines for selecting which startups to support are still being fleshed out, Lopez said NDC might initially allot P125 million for 50 startups.