Industry: Fintech

Crestone Venture Capital is a fintech-focused venture fund founded in 2019 by Kai Schmitz and Inanc Balci, with an Asia office in Makati alongside its Washington, D.C. and Sao Paulo offices, a deliberately global structure built around one specific thesis rather than one specific country. Crestone looks for the same underlying pattern across very different emerging markets: large, young, digitally-native populations with fast-growing GDP and urbanization but still-low penetration of formal financial services, and it backs the fintech infrastructure and embedded-finance companies built to close that gap. In the Philippines specifically, its confirmed portfolio includes Peddlr, a digital ledger and point-of-sale app that helps small sari-sari-store-style merchants manage inventory, bookkeeping, and a B2B marketplace in one place, and OneLot, which is building the software, data, and financing layer for the country's roughly $13 billion used-car dealership market. Both are the kind of unglamorous, high-volume, financial-inclusion-adjacent businesses that fit Crestone's stated thesis exactly, rather than headline-grabbing consumer apps.

Trade credit insurance marketplace unlocking invoice financing for Philippine SMEs

Online marketplace letting Filipinos compare and buy insurance from multiple insurers

Digital remittance and payments platform serving Filipino migrant workers

Buy-now-pay-later credit app helping unbanked Filipinos build a credit history

Buy now, pay later installment credit for Filipino online shoppers

Digital lending app unlocking financing for everyday Filipino consumers

BSP-licensed digital bank offering mobile-first savings, deposits, and lending

Gentree Fund is the venture capital vehicle of the Sy family, the family behind the SM Group of Companies, operating under the Sy Family Office and led by third-generation family members. It began with roughly $40 million initially allocated and, per Nikkei Asia reporting, has been raising a larger vehicle in the $120-150 million range. Confirmed portfolio includes online baby and maternity marketplace edamama, Y Combinator-backed payments company NextPay, enterprise software firm Mosaic Solutions, supply-chain fintech AQWire, livestreaming platform Kumu (a startup already tracked in this site's own Startups directory), and India-based mobile esports platform Mobile Premier League.

JG Digital Equity Ventures (JGDEV) is the corporate venture capital arm of JG Summit Holdings, one of the Philippines' largest diversified conglomerates, spanning food, real estate, air transportation, banking, and petrochemicals. It was launched in 2019 to formalize the group's approach to digital and startup investment. Its confirmed portfolio spans Series A/B-stage Philippine and regional technology companies, including sari-sari store enabler GrowSari, consumer lending platform Cashalo, receipt-scanning rewards platform Snapcart, and Philippine digital bank GoTyme Bank (via a stake in parent Tyme Group). It has also backed India-based HR technology platform Darwinbox, reflecting a mandate broader than the Philippines alone.