Investors Directory

AgFunder is a global venture capital firm founded in 2013 by Rob Leclerc and Michael Dean, headquartered in San Francisco with a second office in Singapore covering Asia dealflow. The firm was built specifically around agrifoodtech — investing in deeptech aimed at bottlenecks in food, agriculture, and human and planetary health — and reports roughly US$300 million in assets under management across a portfolio of 100+ companies spanning four continents. It also runs AgFunderNews, an industry publication it founded to build awareness of the agrifoodtech investment category. AgFunder's portfolio spans robotics and farm automation, alternative proteins, climate and carbon-focused agtech, and biotech, with companies such as Bear Flag Robotics, Juicy Marbles, and DeHaat among its more recognized names. Its own portfolio page lists one clearly Philippine-focused company, Kita (described on AgFunder's site as "digitizing agrifood supply chains in the Philippines") — a genuine, if singular, Philippine connection within an otherwise globally distributed book.

Genting Ventures is the corporate venture capital arm of Genting Group, the diversified Malaysian conglomerate founded in 1965 with global operations spanning leisure and hospitality, casinos and integrated resorts, plantations, property development, biotechnology, cruise lines, and energy. Genting Ventures is headquartered in Singapore (Genting Centre, 3 Lim Teck Kim Road) and backs early-stage startups whose innovations align with its parent group's strategic interests. (Note: this session could not independently confirm Genting Ventures' exact founding year, disclosed fund size, or a verified list of specific portfolio companies through any live, fetchable source — the firm's own website, gentingventures.com, was consistently unreachable to this session's tools (connection resets on every attempt), and no dedicated Wikipedia article or accessible database profile exists. Stated honestly rather than guessed; should be confirmed directly before publishing, ideally via a direct visit to gentingventures.com.) The firm's publicly stated sector focus spans gaming and entertainment, leisure and hospitality, agriculture, web3, and energy — a mix that closely mirrors Genting Group's own diversified business lines, consistent with a corporate venture unit investing for strategic alignment rather than a purely financial-returns mandate.

Leave a Nest Capital is the venture investment arm of Leave a Nest Co., Ltd. (known in Japan as リバネス), a Tokyo-headquartered "knowledge manufacturing" company founded in 2002 that describes its mission as connecting science and technology to real-world problem-solving. The parent company operates seven development divisions spanning education, human resources, R&D, startups, regional development, manufacturing, and strategy, and is best known internationally for TECH PLANTER, a global deep-tech startup pitch and acceleration program it runs across multiple countries. Leave a Nest Capital's own exact founding year, total fund size, and named fund managers were not disclosed in the sources reviewed for this profile. Leave a Nest has a confirmed, genuine presence in the Philippines: regional business press has reported the firm running a TECH PLANTER startup pitch contest in the Philippines and disclosed plans to open a local branch office in Metro Manila, alongside stated expansion into Thailand and Taiwan — evidence of real, ongoing Southeast Asian activity rather than a purely Japan-domestic operation. The firm's investment activity is tightly linked to its TECH PLANTER program, which functions as a deep-tech deal-sourcing and founder-development pipeline feeding into direct investments by Leave a Nest Capital.

Plug and Play Philippines is the local National Startup Accelerator Program run under a formal, two-year partnership between Plug and Play, the Silicon Valley-founded global innovation platform active since 2006 and connected to over 35,000 startups and 500-plus corporate partners worldwide, and the Philippine Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), publicly launched in Makati in April 2024. Rather than an independent Philippine-founded fund, it exists because the government sought out a global accelerator brand to run a formal local program, targeting roughly 40 startups a year across two six-month cohorts, focused on AI, cybersecurity, software development, animation, agritech, and food technology. DFNN Inc., a listed Philippine tech company, joined as a private-sector partner, testing incubating companies' products and contributing seed funding alongside DTI-referred sponsors. Participants receive mentorship and limited direct equity funding, plus access to Plug and Play's global network, reported by the firm at roughly billion in accessible capital — a genuinely different value proposition from a fund writing its own large checks, stated plainly here rather than oversold.