Rich Cebuanos eyed as "Angel Investors"

CEBU, Philippines - The soon to be installed Cebu City Business Economic Development and Investment Promotion (CCEDIP) is bent on developing a pool of "Angel Investors" or "Venture Capitalists" in Cebu, tapping the rich Cebuanos.

Joel Mari S. Yu, the appointed economic adviser for Cebu City Mayor-elect Tomas R. Osmeña vowed to tap the affluent personalities in Cebu and be oriented on opportunity of Venture Capitalism, which offers huge profitability in a more noble way.

According to Yu, the concept of "Angel Investor" or Venture Capitalism is something that is not new to moneyed community, explaining that these people who are operating 5/6 or underground lending operations are willing to fund good and marketable ideas, only if they are well oriented about the idea, and Cebu still has to learn the protocol of this new investment concept.

Yu mentioned that this concept will even somehow solve the perennial problem of access to finance, among micro entrepreneurs, including startup businesses.

However, he said Cebu City government in coordination with industry organizations will have to learn the protocol of Venture Capitalism, how it is being done in Silicon Valley, India and other VC success stories, and will emulate the model and make it work for Cebu.

"We have to sell this idea to them," said Yu referring to the rich people in Cebu who have idle money and what hungry to fund anything that makes money.

Successful Silicon-Valley techno-prenuer earlier urged the Filipino business community to take advantage of the rich talents in the Philippines and lead in providing start-up geeks here the opportunity to seize the huge commercial potential of good technology innovations and concepts.

Khailee Ng, a young Malaysian whose company, the 500 Startup based in Silicon Valley, said that now is the time for the Phillipines to grow its VC ecosystem, while the country is known to have blessed with brilliant minds in technology innovation.

"If Filipino business community does not invest now, they will miss the boat. There's a lot of money to be made for start-up, they should pay attention to that, " Ng said in emphasizing that if Filipino businessmen will not grab this opportunity, other foriegn investors will.

Across industries there are a lot of wealth-producing technology innovations that can be hatched by Filipino geeks. Even now, there is temendous abundance of good ideas and concepts in the Philippines that remained stuck because of lack of funding, and help from business-minded people.

Meanwhile, the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry announced that it will start to convene the concerned organizations such as the Department of Trade and Industry, Department of Science and Technology, and the business sector to connect the start-ups  with industries with particular need.

CCCI president Melanie Ng said that Cebu is going to reverse the mechanism of traditional VC platform.

Instead of looking for capitalists to fund a good innovation or business idea, the start-up community will be linked with industry players in order to know their (industry players) actual requirement. (FREEMAN)