Don’t look now, but you may see some of the biggest Fortune 100 and 500 companies relocating to Manila and even places like Clark, according to the country’s leading players in the venture capital and angel investors space.
Christina Björnström, co-founder of artificial intelligence infrastructure platform Noroot and general partner at 100X, is bringing Silicon Valley methods to Manila and says that places like Naga City and Clark City are where some of the brightest and untapped tech startups and most well-oiled machines are operating.
“There is a kind of like gold rush sensation in coming here (Manila),” she said during a panel discussion at the early stage venture capital company Kaya Founders office in Makati City organized by Esquire Philippines.
“Fortune 100, Fortune 500 companies… are shifting to Manila, they’re going to Clark… I started to hear noise about this.”
Ray Alimurung, a partner at Kaya Founders and former Lazada Philippines CEO, narrated a recent trip to the provincial city of Naga, which wouldn’t be the first place one would think of for nationally scaled tech startups building substantial traction based on merit.
“You would imagine… that it seems in your mind like a backwater, like there’s nothing going on there. And yet when we were there, we were pleasantly surprised and amazed to meet fantastic founders,” he said at the same panel discussion while reflecting on the trip.”There is a lot of potential outside Metro Manila in the Philippines, in Naga particularly, in Bicol, but again in other cities.”
Björnström, who has mentored at top global tech accelerators, said she was stunned by what she saw from the tech players in Naga, calling one such firm the most efficiently and impressively run tech startup she has encountered.
This shows that scale problem-solvers and big picture founders are not just in the greater Metro Manila area; they are all around the country as running a startup becomes a viable career path while the industry continues to flourish.
100x is a joint initiative spearheaded by founding fellows that include Kaya Founders Managing Partner and former Zalora Philippines CEO Paulo Campos and Ignite House of Innovation CEO Andre Yap.
Think of it as a group of like-minded investors with a vision to equip founders with financial, strategic, and human capital resources, as well as the technical know-how to realize major returns on investment and impact.
Kaya Founders, on the other hand, is one of the country’s most active early stage VC firms, led by operators turned investors Paulo Campos, Ray Alimurung, and Summit Media Chairperson Lisa Gokongwei-Cheng. The firm raised about $25 million last year in the final close of its latest fund to expand its already diverse startup portfolio across various industries and sectors.
Andre Yap, who co-founded 100x and serves as the movement’s overall architect, envisions putting heads together to cultivate the greatest generation of Filipino startups.
“The last truly great generation of Filipino startups was born post-war,” he said. “They built household names, 100x-type businesses from nothing,” he said, referring to the aimed 100x (100 times) return on investment and the overall impact for founders, investors, and the Philippine business climate as businesses take off.
“We’re in a very different context but presented with the same generational inflection point,” he added.
While the startup scene in the Philippines remains promising, globally the Philippines slipped to 64th place out of 100 countries in the 2025 Global Startup Ecosystem Index due to persistent gaps in infrastructure and regulations.
This was four spots lower than its placing a year earlier, representing the lowest yearly ecosystem growth rate in Southeast Asia, based on the report by global research research firm StartupBlink.
The ranking was also the fourth straight year of decline for the country, which ranked 52nd in 2021, 57th in 2022, in 2023, and 60th in 2024.
Manila remains a burgeoning hub for startup growth, posting about $1 billion in funding for startups each year since 2024, based on a report by Foxmont Capital Partners and BCG.
Things are looking up for investors who are chomping at the bit to look past the so-called “BGC bubble” and tap into provincial hubs like Naga, which are places far from being backwater provinces. They are now seen as key breeding grounds for the latest and greatest tech visionaries and the most intuitive scale problem solvers in the heart of the provinces.
A Generation of Exponential Problem Solvers
“The pitch is simple,” said Björnström said. “Don’t you want first dibs on opportunities before they hit the front page of the New York Times or Wall Street Journal? The Philippines is the single most relevant place in Asia right now vis-à-vis the West.”
She added that a lot of times when people see where the scene is at in the news, they are usually about seven years behind what is actually happening on the ground. The Philippines, surprisingly enough, is early to this Southeast Asian startup party.
Campos chimed in on how to truly make waves as an investor and founder. He noted that you cannot be just a little better than the status quo. You need to be at least 10 times better in customer impact to be on your way for a 100x valuation.
“I think we are presented with a generational inflection point… we need to build the future we want to see,” Yap and Campos agreed during the discussion.
Alimurung cited the necessity to work on transforming the Philippines from a place where startups seem like a novelty into an environment where working at a startup invested by real capital is where you want to be.
100x and Kaya Founders recognize that talent exists and that there is an emerging shift toward Manila. What is missing for them is the operating system to get the ball rolling, along with shared standards and a peer-to-peer learning infrastructure to leave the status quo in the dust.
Yap stressed that the Philippines is not running out of scale problems that are eminently 100x-able. It is just a matter of finding a way to go about solving them.
“We will look back at this moment as the founding of the greatest generation of Filipino startups. Not because we are special, but because we are solving the right problem. The gap is not capital. It is world-class founders. That is what we are building,” the 100x architect said.
On Thursday, February 12, 100x is holding its Open House “Unconference” at KMC in One Ayala. The event is designed to break away from the typical startup event format build around the 100x vision of dismantiling the “winging it” formula of most founders and focusing on “road-testing, real-world business problems” and how to solve them.
“We are not going to be late to the party,” Yap said. “We are co-creating the party.”
The 100X Philippines 2026 Open House is happening on Thursday, February 12, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the KMC One Ayala East Tower in Makati City. For more information, visit 100XVC.IO.
