Investors Directory

Villgro Philippines is a gender-smart impact incubator founded in 2017 and based in Makati, operating as the Philippine chapter of Villgro, an impact-investing organization with roots in India that runs country-specific programs across several emerging markets. Rather than writing occasional checks from a fixed fund, Villgro Philippines runs a direct incubation-and-investment portfolio that has grown to around 39 enterprises across health, education, agriculture, affordable housing, and women-and-girls-focused businesses, pairing capital with hands-on investment-readiness support. It also co-founded two pieces of investing infrastructure the local ecosystem lacked: Impact Pioneers, described by Villgro itself as the Philippines' first dedicated impact angel-investing network, built jointly with xchange; and WE Rise Community, an access-to-finance platform for women entrepreneurs. Its most recent initiative, AI4Health Asia, was launched with Canada's IDRC as the first accelerator of its kind in the region dedicated to responsible-AI health startups, focused on sexual, reproductive, and maternal health and on epidemic preparedness across South and Southeast Asia.

xchange is a genuinely Philippine, Manila-based philanthropic, impact-first incubator founded in 2011 by Rico Gonzalez (now Managing Director) and Nono Coliangco. It is a real capital-deploying organization, not purely an advisory shop — its LinkedIn profile describes it as providing seed capital alongside tailored mentorship to early-stage Philippine social enterprises — but its own site frames its work across three pillars ("Build Ventures," "Finance Ventures," "Advise Ventures"), making it more accurately described as a hybrid incubator/impact-investor than a conventional check-writing VC fund. Its current leadership team also includes Finance Director Rizza Mariano and Directors Erika Tatad and Love Gregorie Moral-Perez. xchange focuses on social enterprises addressing structural Philippine problems across four thematic areas it calls "Futures": the Future of Work (business/finance innovation, workforce transformation), the Future of the Planet (disaster resilience, food systems, regenerative solutions), the Future of Well-being, Health & Nutrition, and the Future of Education. No specific named investee/portfolio company could be confirmed from the pages accessible this session — its portfolio page returned a 404, so this entry cannot list concrete example ventures, which is a real gap rather than an intentional omission.