Industry: Fintech

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.

917Ventures (legal entity: Globe Capital Venture Holdings, Inc.) is Globe Telecom's venture-building arm, launched in 2019 and wholly owned by Globe. Rather than investing in external startups the way a typical fund does, it operates primarily as a venture studio — conceiving, building, and launching new digital businesses from within the Globe ecosystem — and has launched roughly 20 ventures to date. Confirmed ventures include GInsure, a digital micro-insurance platform; GCredit, a digital credit line embedded in the GCash app; and AdSpark, a digital advertising and marketing technology company. This venture-builder model is a meaningfully different mechanism from a typical external-investment fund, and is described honestly here as such.

UBX Philippines Corp is the fintech venture-building and investment arm of UnionBank of the Philippines (part of the Aboitiz Group), incorporated in late 2018 with a reported committed budget of roughly ₱500 million a year. It builds and invests in financial-technology ventures aimed at underserved Filipino individuals and small businesses, and later established a Singapore hub to extend its venture arm's regional reach. Confirmed portfolio includes SME lending platform SeekCap, rural-bank digital-infrastructure provider i2i, and micro-merchant platform Bux. UBX also led a funding round for PDAX, one of the Philippines' licensed cryptocurrency exchanges — a real, notable link to another platform already tracked in this directory's Startups section.

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.

API-driven microinsurance distribution platform for rural banks and cooperatives

Blockchain-enabled cross-border remittance infrastructure for banks and RSPs

Payroll automation SaaS and blockchain remittance token; suspended operations in 2023

Earned wage access platform letting Filipino employees draw salary before payday

Financial management and bookkeeping app for Filipino SMEs, expanding into payments and credit