Manila moves up to 81-90, from 91-100 last year, in the Emerging Startup Ecosystem group ranking of the Global Startup Ecosystem Report 2024 (GSER 2024), an annual report on technology startups.
Manila in the report refers to “all cities covering a 100-kilometer radius from the central point” of the Philippine capital, according to Prashant Sharma, data science lead of Startup Genome, the policy advisory and research organization behind the 2024 report.
It has a startup ecosystem value of more than $6.4 billion, which represents a 72% compound annual growth rate, he said in a June 10 Zoom interview.
Ecosystem value is the measure of economic impact, calculated as the value of exits and startup valuations.
“We have five success factors in our ranking: performance, funding, talent and experience, market reach, and knowledge. We have seen Manila improve its scores [due to] its performance and funding factors, mainly,” Mr. Sharma said in a June 10 Zoom interview.
“This year, we have also started looking at the regional rank,” he also told BusinessWorld. “Manila‘s regional rank in Asia is 21-25.”
The Philippines has about 1,100 startups, 60 incubators and accelerators, 50 venture capitalists, and 200 coworking spaces. It is in the Top 20 in funding in the Asia ecosystem, with the fintech, e-commerce, and gaming subsectors performing well.
Startups under these subsectors include Advance Tech Lending Inc., a business loans fintech platform that raised $16 million in 2023, and MotherNurture Inc., a retailer of online baby products that raised $35 million in a venture capital round, also in 2023.
Cebu and Davao’s ecosystems were both past the 200-mark ranking and were thus not included in the 2024 report, Mr. Sharma said.
“Both cities need to work on early-stage funding rounds…where startups get early-stage funding, prove that their products do new innovations, before then going into the later rounds,” he said.
“Hopefully we will see more activity in both cities, and they will [appear] in the Emerging Startup Ecosystem rankings,” he added.
Worldwide, the top five ecosystems are Silicon Valley, New York City and London (tied at number two), and Tel Aviv and Los Angeles (tied at number four). Rounding out the top ten are Boston, Singapore, Beijing, Seoul, and Tokyo.
This is the first time since the report’s 2012 inception that Tokyo has entered the global Top 10.
Silicon Valley led all ecosystems for the greatest number of new unicorns (15) in 2023, although this was down 80% from 2022. – Patricia B. Mirasol
