Philippine-based early stage venture capital firm Kaya Founders has on Tuesday announced three new investments and two follow-on investments to start 2025, bucking the trend around Southeast Asia’s muted funding and dealmaking activities for early-stage companies over the past few quarters.

The firm said in a statement that the latest companies to join the its portfolio include fintech company LenderLink, an alternative credit data provider for consumer lenders, insurtech ProTech, a device insurance enterprise for emerging markets, and food and beverage (F&B) startup Foodoo that is streamlining transactions between suppliers and buyers in the business to business (B2B) food industry.

In terms of follow-ons, Kaya participated in the pre-Series A funding rounds of B2B artificial intelligence (AI) product recommendation engine Sourcy and online tutoring outsourcing company EDGE Tutor on the back of their strong traction and exciting growth trajectory.

Earlier this year, Kaya unveiled its investment themes for 2025, which centered around 1) AI-powered B2B platforms transforming the Philippines’ largest industries, 2) tech-enabled business to consumer (B2C) models for the country’s emerging middle class and 3) embedded credit solutions fueling small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) growth and empowering consumers.

The latest flurry of deals align squarely with the fund’s deep conviction in these three verticals, reflecting Kaya’s thesis-driven approach to investing in technology shaping critical industries in the Philippines and beyond.

“We believe in investing in the foundational rails for key industries in the Philippines, such as lending and food service,” shared Kaya Founders General Partner Ray Alimurung.

“Like the Meta’s and the Amazon’s of the world have previously enabled, we see a future where new business models can be unlocked and built on top of the infrastructure and technology created by our latest portfolio companies,” he added.

Meanwhile, Kaya’s Founding Managing General Partner Paulo Campos shared that the founders are the lifeblood of the startups the firm backs.

“We have full confidence that they are the right founders to steer their respective companies to incredible heights, and we are thrilled to be partnering with each of them so early on in their journeys,” he added.

Kaya Founders is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage start-ups in the Philippines and Southeast Asia.

The firm supports extraordinary founders building promising tech-enabled and scalable ventures who have a strong focus or connection to the Philippines.

It deploys capital out of two funds—their Zero to One Fund, which is often the first institutional check for pre-Seed founders helping to validate their idea and bring their
business to market, and their Seed to Series A focused One to Ten Fund, which doubles down on the most successful companies from the Zero to One Fund and also invests in
high-potential startups outside the Kaya ecosystem.

The firm has invested in 50+ companies to date across a range of industries including eCommerce, financial services, healthcare, agriculture, and more.

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