1337 Ventures (pronounced “leet ventures”) in collaboration with Department of Science & Technology of Philippines brings its idea validation programme, Alpha Startups to the Philippines region with the initial marker being laid in Cebu this November 9-13. Existing start ups as well as new business ideas are welcome to apply for the inaugural class within the Philippines.
“We have always viewed the Philippines region as a lucrative market to launch a start up. They have a large unbanked population, one of the biggest inbound transactions and great talent. This programme will greatly help Philippine entrepreneurs as well as all others within our Alpha Startups alumni as it puts them on a global footing to potentially work together and have a greater geographical presence.” says Bikesh Lakhmichand, CEO of 1337 Ventures
Alpha Startups has helped many an entrepreneur achieve their goals and business expansion objectives. This includes providing resources, potential funding, tech support, while nurturing them with business knowledge and decision making skills. They help transform a start up’s early raw ideas into ‘minimal viable products’ (MVP) where it is good for an initial market launch.
“Alpha Startups was a great shortcut for Closetstyles to validate what works and what doesn’t’. At the end of the programme, we felt the direction was clearer and we were more confident in executing it” says Fong Kam Ling, founder of Closetstyles.
“The programme was invaluable to me in strengthening our value proposition and structuring our thoughts into a pitch deck. It was due to this that we raised our first round of investments in such a short time.” says Brian Foo, founder of Gigfairy.
Alpha Startups Cebu will be one of the building blocks of the Philippine start up roadmap that was authored by Senator Paolo “Bam” Aquino with the vision of creating 500 Philippino startups raising US$ 200 million of total funding by 2020.
“The Alpha Startup Bootcamp will help early stage startups get off the ground by teaching them the basics of building a digital business. This is a gap we currently see in the Philippine startup ecosystem that this initiative will help address.” Says Monchito Ibrahim, Deputy Executive Director of ICT Office – Department of Science and Technology Philippines.
1337 Ventures is looking forward to working with supporting partner Techtalks.ph in this inaugural Alpha Startups in Philippines. “We really love engaging with the local ecosystems as this supports the initiative of building communities within localities.” says Bikesh Lakhmichand, CEO of 1337 Ventures.
Entrepreneurs will be exposed to a 5-day intensive bootcamp from the 9th -13th of November 2015, where 25 selected startups will get to test their ideas through customer and product development, growth hacking and learn the art of pitching. Startups will get the chance to show their key learnings of the week at a demo day on the 13th of November that will be attended by key investors. Entrepreneurs registering for the pre-accelerator programme in November will have to submit a one-minute video pitch as an entry point.
Entrepreneurs can now register at the below details:
Registration: http://alphastartups.co
1st closing: 19th October 2015
2nd closing: 26th October 2015
Application results: Entrepreneurs will be notified of results by / before 2nd November 2015
For further enquiries on 1337 Ventures as well as its affiliated programmes, email info@1337ventures.net or visit www.1337.ventures
Ross is known as the Pambansang Blogger ng Pilipinas - An Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Professional by profession and a Social Media Evangelist by heart.
