Ayala Group’s VC ambitions get ACTIVE

The Ayala Group, whose venture capital firm Kickstart breathed life into the Philippine startup scene, closed a US$180 million fund. Global in its vision, it must draw on Kickstart’s learnings to deal with its half-dozen LPs and manage conflicts of interest

Kickstart was a trailblazer, being one of the first incubators in the Philippines when there was simply no startup scene

Its second fund delivered a rare exit—a US$95 million return that came when tech behemoth Gojek bought mobile wallet Coins

ACTIVE is a different beast, not least for its massive size. Funded by Ayala’s other entities, it has to keep the parent company’s interests in mind as well

And with deal flow being a problem in the Philippines, Kickstart is looking at going global with the ACTIVE Fund

On 2 October, in a marker of just how far the Philippines’ startup ecosystem has come, one of its earliest backers closed a mammoth new fund. Anchored by the Ayala Group, whose corporate venture capital (CVC) firm Kickstart Ventures breathed life into many of the country’s earliest startups, the ACTIVE Fund will begin life with US$180 million in its kitty. This surpasses its original target of US$150 million.

ACTIVE is the evolution of Ayala’s VC ambitions. The country’s oldest conglomerate—beginning life as a distillery in 1834—with an empire spanning real estate, banking, power, water, infrastructure, and healthcare, it began flexing its VC muscle almost a decade ago through Kickstart.

AUTHOR

Jum Balea

Jum is a Manila-based reporter for The Ken, where she covers startups and business across Southeast Asia, with a focus on the Philippines. She previously was editor for Tech In Asia, and business editor for Philippine media companies Rappler and ABS-CBN.

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