Debut of “Grad School for Startups” brought 28 Global Innovators
to the Philippines; Top 8 Groups Won Instant Seed Fund
Web-based app and start-up developer group, Orchestrack, hummed to the tune of success after winning this year’s biggest plum at the recently concluded debut of Hack2Hatch. Hack to Hatch (h2H), an entrepreneurship camp featuring one-to-one mentorship sessions between investors and innovators from Silicon Valley, and young existing Philippine-based startups.
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Besting 21 other groups, Orchestrack, a startup based in Quezon City, is the brainchild of two young professionals determined to assist the creative industry. The web-application is a broadcast monitoring service that captures broadcast feeds for audio content to be identified automatically as they are played on air. For Unyx Sta. Ana, Chief Executive Officer, and Raymond del Rosario, Chief Technology Officer, Orchestrack started as a thesis topic in during their undergraduate studies. Four years later, they left the corporate world to pursue the vision they had formed together in 2006.
“We developed Orchestrack originally for the music business,” said Sta. Ana. “Since we started in 2010, our ideas have refined. Aside from monitoring music, we recognized that we could also serve the advertising industry by monitoring commercials from radio and TV station.”
The duo is also thankful for the opportunity of participating in Hack2Hatch. “To be mentored by the veterans is what we liked the most. We learned a lot from our mentor, Care.com’s Founder and CEO, Sheila Lirio Marcelo, and all the other prolific advisers who gave us useful tips and concrete steps to achieve what they have,” she added.
Sta. Ana also noted that the ‘no-strings-attached’ investment of P100,000 received from participating in the 3-day exercise, “is very helpful to give us some time to focus with our development roadmap.”
Aside from Orchestrack, h2H also recognized seven other standout startups, FamilyKo, a web and mobile application that allows long-distance families to spend quality time together; Pinoy Autotrader, provides tools to connect car buyers with private car sellers and car dealerships; Pancake Servers, a community-made gaming servers hosted on cloud drives; StaffWisely, a staff marketplace for IT Outsourcing companies; Bolooka, a social e-commerce platform designed to bring online buyers and sellers closer to each other; MRTTrackr, an app that tracks our Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) in Metro Manila; and H1red, an online recruitment website featuring groundbreaking employee-employment matching technology.
Held at the Radisson Blu Hotel and the Shangri-La Mactan in the queen city of the south, the event brought together the country’s top business developers, venture capitalists and Filipino-American technopreneurs, based in Silicon Valley, who are also trustees of the Philippine Development Foundation (PhilDev).
PhilDev Chairman and Tallwood Managing Partner Dado Banatao, Care.com Founder and CEO, Sheila Lirio Marcelo, and Morphlabs CEO and Hack2Hatch Creator, Winston Damarillo. Damarillo, an entrepreneurship advocate and venture capitalist shared, “The energy of bringing mentors, volunteers and experts in one place to shape and harness the future of Philippine technology was amazing. It was also great to get together in what is being called the next investment hub in Asia – Cebu City,” said the serial technopreneur.
“This is only the beginning. The Philippines has the promise to be the software industry leader in the ASEAN and global markets,” he added.
Other notable mentors included Hack2Hatch co-chair Alvin Gendrano, Microsoft Philippines Director; Eric Manlunas, Siemer Ventures Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Arthur Tan, Ayala Corporation Senior Managing Director and Integrated Microelectronics, Inc. CEO and President; Paco Sandejas, Narra Venture Capital Managing Partner, Earl Martin Valencia, Smart Communications Vice President and IdeaSpace Foundation President; Maria Ressa, Rappler CEO and Executive Editor, Ghia Griarte, Managing Director, Saints Venture Capital, Toby E. Stuart, Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley Professor, Jerry Rapes, Exist Software Labs, Inc. President and CEO and Jerry Held, Held Consulting CEO and Former SVP at Oracle.
“We at PhilDev and Developers Connect (DevCon) are grateful that our mentors, participants, sponsors and volunteers made our debut a success. We look forward to holding more Hack2Hatch events across the Philippines and in Filipino American Communities in the US,” said Damarillo. “Long-term economic development in the Philippines through innovation and entrepreneurship is our goal.”
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