Eight Philippine-based startups managed to secure funding in August, with parenting-focused e-commerce platform Edamama topping the list with its $20-million Series A round, according to published data compiled by The Independent Investor.
Five of the local startups publicly announced raising $34.23 million last month while the three others did not provide financial details of their funding rounds.
Edamama’s Series A funding round was anchored by Alpha JWC Ventures, one of Southeast Asia’s most prominent venture capital firms. In a statement, the company said the oversubscribed fundraise was one of the country’s largest early-stage rounds.
The round was participated by existing investors, including Gentree Fund, Robinsons Retail Holdings Inc, and Kickstart Ventures.
Locad, a logistics and local supply chain management integrator backed by Sequoia Capital India’s Surge, raised the second largest amount in August at a reported $7.89 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Reefknot Investments and came a year after the startup raised $4.9 million in Seed funding.
Locad launched in November 2020 to address the rise of the digital consumer precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic. It aims to scale and level up the e-commerce supply chains of both developing and established brands through simplified logistics.
Another Philippine-based startup that raised funding last month was MetaverseGo, a play-to-earn mobile gaming platform. The firm raised $4.2 million in a seed round backed by Galaxy Interactive, a division of Galaxy Digital Holdings.
MetaverseGo is a decentralized blockchain platform that provides newbie and seasoned gamers easy access to play-and-earn games, guild participation, NFT collection, and access to other decentralized applications.
Tech startup Packworks also announced last month that it raised $2 million in seed funding to launch its mobile enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform for sari-sari store-partners in the country.
The seed round was led by end-to-end logistics group Fast Group and global private equity firm CVC Capital Partners, with participation from ADB Ventures, Arise, Techstars, and IdeaSpace Foundation.
Aside from developing its new app, Packworks said it will use the fresh funding to establish a department that directly engages the sari-sari stores, provide additional services with partners, and build an open platform for financial institutions and brands to connect directly with store owners.
A startup that offers small business owners in the country the social media exposure they need to grow also raised $140,000 in pre-Seed funding last month. Kamilas4am, a Filipino-led digital design startup that produces short-form videos, said it secured the funding from Japanese and Filipino angel investors.
The fresh funding will be used to build the startup’s first prototype: a self-service platform where business owners pick and order through templates of videos that they can use for their social media marketing.
Direct-to-consumer cosmetics firm Niv Della, owner of Colourette and Fresh Formula brands, also raised an undisclosed amount in August, along with online grocery firm Rare Global Food Trading and workplace platform Betterteem.