MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Manila Angel Investors Network (MAIN) was invited by the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT) to represent the investment community as part of the official Philippine delegation to North America’s fastest-growing tech conference, Collision Con 2022.
Begun in 2015, Collision returned face-to-face for the first time since the pandemic. The sold-out event was the largest international in-person gathering in Toronto in more than two years. It is estimated that over 40,000 attendees from over 120 countries, including 1,250 startups, 850 investors, and 1,200 journalists collided together over the three-day conference.
“We are delighted to have been invited by the DICT to participate and network in Collision’s Venture Summit that could potentially bring investments to the Philippines,” Quenby Go, MAIN’s executive director, said. The Venture Summit is an exclusive one-day assembly of the world’s top 250 venture capitalists. MAIN delegates engaged with other entrepreneurs and investors in curated roundtables and personal meetings to explore opportunities.
Joseph de Leon, one of MAIN’s delegates highlighted, “We had the privilege to share stories of our world-class Philippine startups one-on-one thanks to DICT we were able to personally invite international investors, start-ups, and members of the Filipino Canadian community to become part of our Philippine growth story.”
During the conference, Filipino delegates tracked technological innovations across industries that will play a part in revitalizing the global economy and impact local markets.
“All of these we do, not just to make the public aware that these new innovations exist, or to introduce these companies to the viability of the Philippine market, but also to give them the opportunity to develop our local talent and reinforce the whole Philippine tech scene,” Arnold “Ali” Atienza, DICT’s undersecretary for emerging technologies, said.
“The office of Emerging Technologies in the DICT is an active participant in realizing these collaborations between foreign and local tech companies and the Philippine startups,” Atienza added.
Supporting the government’s implementation of the Innovative Startup Act of 2019, MAIN, composed of more than 100 angel investors, has an existing partnership with the DICT, covering advocacy, awareness, and information sharing of ITpreneurship; skills, coaching, and mentorship of aspiring startups; and conduction of a pitching competition, startup learning sessions, events, and conferences.
MAIN connects promising early-stage startups with investors, providing mentoring and guidance. Among MAIN’s notable funded startups are Kumu, Taxumo, Qwikwire, and Fortuna Coolers.
