Kickstart Ventures Joins Panel in London Tech Week | BitPinas

• Kickstart, a venture capital firm backed by Globe, along with other fintech leaders represented the Philippines at the London Tech Week from June 12-16, 2023, participating in panel discussions and events.
• The firm’s President and CEO Minette Navarrete highlighted the importance of strategic corporate innovation and collaboration in addressing major challenges during the Global Leaders Innovation Summit’s panel discussion.
• London Tech Week is an annual event that showcases the technology and innovation ecosystem in London, bringing together industry leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, and tech enthusiasts from around the world.

The Globe-backed Kickstart Ventures was part of the Philippine delegation for the recently concluded London Tech Week last June 12–16, 2023. The company’s representative, Kickstart President and CEO Minette Navarrete, discussed in one of the panel discussions of the global event about the firm’s expertise in strategic corporate innovation.

London Tech Week is an annual event that celebrates and showcases the technology and innovation ecosystem in London, United Kingdom. It is a week-long series of conferences, exhibitions, networking events, and panel discussions that bring together industry leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, and tech enthusiasts from around the world. 

Kickstart in London Tech Week

At the Global Leaders Innovation Summit’s “Cracking the Innovation Code – Remaining Resolute on Investment” discussion, held at the Queen Elizabeth Centre II in Westminster, London on June 12th, Navarrete emphasized the transformative potential of strategic corporate innovation and collaboration in tackling major challenges.

In a statement, Kickstart Ventures shared that the speakers offered their insights on driving innovation in sectors like mobility and property management. The panel addressed the need to invest in innovation despite challenges such as an unpredictable economy, shareholder pressures, and increasing competition from generative Artificial Intelligence (AI).

“We’ve found it helps to focus on our customers and communities, who face deeply rooted challenges. Our investments at Kickstart are part of a wider pursuit of the Globe and Ayala Groups to create solutions that will chip away at these persistent societal pains,” Navarrete said noting that by harnessing the enterprise scale of Globe and Ayala, and capitalizing on the agility of startups, the firm can invest in solutions that address both current and future challenges.

Apart from Navarrete’s panel participation, Mike Maté, Kickstart’s VP of Investments, took part in the “Pitch Up” event, a pitching session held at the iconic London Eye.

Navarrete on Kickstart Strategies

Citing involuntary hunger in the Philippines, Navarrete illustrated Kickstart’s strategy of investing in future-focused solutions such as food waste optimization through logistics. Moreover, she highlighted the importance of collaboration between corporations and startups for shared success.

“We make investments where we see emerging opportunities that will create value. Our investments in Xendit, a Southeast Asian payment gateway now working with BPI and Globe Telecom, and Treedots, a Singapore-based wholesale distributor of surplus and imperfect food supplies now working with some of Southeast Asia’s biggest food suppliers, are proof of technology, products, and services deploying new business models, meeting new customers, and creating new use cases,” she said.

Xendit’s subsidiary XenRemit, recently acquired a virtual assets service provider (VASP) license from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

In addition, Navarrete left a recommendation to leaders interested in making investments  “Start small. Consider pilots, proof of concepts, and then scale fast – together.”

One of the successful investments of Kickstart Venture was Coins.ph–now a crypto e-wallet and exchange. The firm was an investor in the e-wallet during its funding series; in 2019, Indonesian digital payment technology group Gojek acquired Coins. Since 2022 it is now under the leadership of former Binance Chief Financial Officer Wei Zhou.

KickStart Ventures is also an investor in social media and live streaming platform KUMU–along with other big Philippine firms it is also currently trying to enter the web3 space. 

PH Delegates

Aside from Navarrete, the Philippine representatives for the London Tech Week were GCash’s CEO Martha Sazon, with Makati Mayor Mar-Len Abigail Binay, Digital Pilipinas Convenor Amor Maclang, GCash Chief Technology and Operations Officer Pebbles Sy and Metro Pacific Investments Corporation Chief Finance Officer and Chief Sustainability Officer Chaye Cabal-Revilla. 

Read More: PH Fintech Leaders Invited by UK PM at London Tech Week

“We look to the UK, one of the major dialogue partners of ASEAN, for its renewed Indo-Pacific commitment especially in the space of Digital Economies,” Maclang stated. The women were also part of the 200 CEOs invited by the United Kingdom (UK) Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to witness the transformation of the black door in Downing Street into a design with a binary code. 

This article is published on BitPinas: Venture Capital firm Kickstart joins panel in London Tech Week

Disclaimer: BitPinas articles and its external content are not financial advice. The team serves to deliver independent, unbiased news to provide information for Philippine-crypto and beyond.

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• Source: https://bitpinas.com/fintech/kickstart-london-tech-week-2023/