Gobi Partners has joined hands with Core Capital to set up a new US$10 million early-stage fund that will target seed and Series A investments in the Philippines, the two companies said in a joint press release today.
Known as the Gobi-Core Philippine Fund, the new investment vehicle will first focus on B2B e-commerce, platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), health tech, and logistics companies. Going forward, it intends to expand into other sectors like travel, entertainment, and retail tech.
This will be Gobi’s first foray into the Philippines, after 16 years of operations investing in companies in Asia and beyond. Core Capital, on the other hand, is a newly minted venture capital firm based in Manila set up this year.
On why Gobi has decided to enter the Philippines, Thomas G. Tsao, Co-founder of Gobi Partners, said in a statement that the team has been “consistently amazed by the level of entrepreneurial talent in the Philippines” and that “the same growth patterns that occurred in China and Indonesia are now happening in the Philippines”.
The two parties believe that the new fund will support young companies in the Philippines locally through Core’s Philippine network and business operating experience, and regionally as well through Gobi’s expertise in scaling companies across China and Southeast Asia.
While there is an increasing number of funds ranging from early-stage to growth-stage rising up, the Philippines often flies under the radar. Venture capital firms from the region may invest in Philippine companies but do not typically focus on the Philippines. This new fund may change that.
Editor: Ben Jiang