Under the banner of FIESTARTUP 2025: Scaling Innovations, Charting the Future, Central Visayas startup founders and ecosystem enablers gathered on November 3, 2025 in Cebu City for a crucial summit focused on strengthening regional collaboration and accelerating innovation-led growth.
Organized by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Region 7 Central Visayas in partnership with major private sector enablers, the one-day program featured keynotes and co-creation workshops designed to align regional support mechanisms.
Launched in 2022, FIESTARTUP is an annual event spearheaded by a dedicated team of prominent startup ecosystem leaders who all hail from Cebu. This group includes Aiai Garcia (Nala Woman), April Ong Vaño (Quest Ventures), Bryan Yap (RGC Group), and Carlo Chen-Delantar (Gobi-Core Philippines Fund), who joined forces to fill the gap in learning and exposure for the Cebuano startup community. The event aims to celebrate Philippine Startup Week and provide a vital platform connecting local founders with investors and the business community.
“Fiestartup was conceived to bridge and accelerate knowledge within the fast-growing startup ecosystem—making information on building companies freely accessible to all. It aims to create nation-building opportunities for the Philippines, positioning it as a true pearl of opportunities,” said Chen-Delantar.
Tracing the event’s evolution, April Ong Vaño noted how FIESTARTUP’s focus has intensified each year.
“When we launched Fiestartup in 2022, our vision was to bridge Cebu’s local startup community with the broader Philippine innovation ecosystem—creating a space for meaningful exchange. In the years that followed, we hosted masterclasses focused on founder development, empowering entrepreneurs to grow their ventures,” recounts Ong Vaño.
“This year, we took a broader, ecosystem-wide perspective—examining the state of Startup Cebu and how collaboration among key pillars can unlock greater investment and accelerated growth. Through our co-creation sessions, we gathered valuable ideas and harnessed the collective brilliance of community leaders committed to driving impact. As we move forward, we call for purposeful collaboration and collective action across Cebu’s startup and innovation community to realize our shared vision and reach our full potential,” she added.
DTI Emphasizes Collective Action for Unicorns
The summit was anchored by the DTI’s commitment to building a unified regional startup roadmap. Ma. Theresa Sederiosa, DTI 7 Industry Development Chief, opened the event by stressing the importance of collective action in shaping the region’s innovation ecosystem.
“FIESTARTUP 2025 marks a defining moment for Central Visayas as we, together with our startups, enablers, and partners from DEPDev, DICT, and DOST, co-create the region’s startup roadmap. By aligning our efforts, sharing data, and strengthening collaboration, we’re paving the way for a community capable of producing our own unicorn and positioning Central Visayas as a hub for innovation and entrepreneurship,” Sederiosa stated.
Keynote Challenges Ecosystem to Choose ‘Action’
Following the DTI’s message, the keynote session, delivered by Ron Castro, Managing Editor of The Independent Investor, challenged the attendees to match the DTI’s institutional commitment with structural change. Drawing on three and a half decades of experience across disruptive industries, Castro diagnosed the local ecosystem’s major hurdle as “sub-optimal” collaboration—often based on personal favors rather than formal alignment.
His core message centered on a harsh business truth: “Strategy without execution is just alternative theater.”
“Disruption is inevitable. Transformation is a choice,” Castro asserted. “To achieve exponential growth and stop merely managing decline, the Central Visayas ecosystem must move past performative planning and make its defining choices—choosing action—early and quietly.”
Castro proposed three structural prescriptions to move the region toward exponential growth: implementing Data Visibility, establishing Mandated Engagement (making collaboration a formal KPI), and agreeing on a singular Strategic Narrative to focus all efforts.
Panel Discusses Scaling Ventures and Policy Frameworks
FIESTARTUP also featured a panel discussion, “Beyond Product-Market Fit: Building Scalable Ventures in Emerging Ecosystems.”
Pamela Belen, CEO and Co-Founder of Umpisa.co, brought a systems-thinking approach, highlighting the significant gap between what startup leaders know they need to scale and what they should actually execute. Her experience in digital transformation, corporate and startups showed that founders who understand the foundations of business and exercise discipline and adaptability are best positioned to disrupt the industries.
“As you scale, be very clear about where you are headed and establish systems to make success repeatable. But given the current market, find resilient markets and opportunities. Ultimately, Entrepreneurship + Management = Success,” Belen emphasized.
Karl Satinitigan, Founder of Work in Progress, offered a unique policy-to-practice perspective. Having helped write the Innovative Startup Act while at the Senate, Satinitigan emphasized that entrepreneurship does not happen in a vacuum. He stressed that when the regulatory and capital access systems are broken, founders must either build around them or actively fix them, underscoring the importance of understanding the frameworks that enable or obstruct market formation.
They were joined by Norman Curato, CEO & Co-founder of Xeleqt Technology Innovations Inc., who provided an essential founder perspective on achieving scale within the current ecosystem framework.
Workshop Diagnoses Pain Points and Growth Levers
The summit concluded with a high-impact Ecosystem Growth Levers Workshop, laying the groundwork for the final Co-creation and Commitment Session. Facilitated by Toffer Briones, Venture Partner at Brinc and long-time innovation ecosystem strategist, the session introduced a structured “ecosystem map” and an AI-enabled assessment designed to help participants diagnose Cebu’s startup landscape with greater clarity.
The workshop blended prompt-based AI self-assessment with a design thinking gallery walk, allowing startups, TBIs, universities, investors, and government representatives (including DTI and DICT) to surface insights rapidly. Participants scored Cebu’s startup ecosystem at roughly 2 out of 4, aligning it with the Emerging / Globalization stage—a phase marked by strong talent and collaborative culture but limited capital depth, global exposure, and repeatable success stories.
Across the room, participants identified several recurring pain points: the absence of unified KPIs or dashboards to measure progress, friction in supplier and partner onboarding, and persistent challenges around cash flow, data access, and resource constraints. Founders also noted the difficulty of securing investor meetings and the need for more operational support to scale effectively.
To move forward, participants emphasized the need for stronger networking pathways, consistent mentorship, and improved Investor Relations (IR) support. They also highlighted the value of direct industry linkages, deeper technical and marketing training, and expanded structural funding support such as grants, incentives, and non-dilutive capital—signals of what the ecosystem must strengthen to accelerate Cebu’s next stage of growth.
Through initiatives like FIESTARTUP 2025, DTI Region 7 continues its commitment to building a dynamic and inclusive innovation community, empowering Central Visayas startups to scale and thrive.