Uniquely at the nexus of venture capital, corporate, and 100X Peak Performance
-- igniting all we touch to their greatest growth and impact.

Uniquely at the nexus of venture capital, corporate, and 100X Peak Performance-- igniting all we touch to their greatest growth and impact.

You've never met anyone like us
VC is our 100X lab, talent supply & demand our 100X market and mission

ANDRE YAP

CEO, Ignite House of Innovation

You've never met anyone like us. Because our day job is early-stage VC, the greatest and often only asset we're funding is human capital that must perform at superhuman levels to hurdle 100X ROI targets.

You've never met anyone like us. Because our day job is early-stage VC, the greatest and often only asset we're funding is human capital that must perform at superhuman levels to hurdle 100X ROI targets.

This is the unique skill set we bring: VC is the business of investing in people and empowering their inner superhero--that 100X Ethos. In the past decade, we've invested hundreds of millions PhP in people who make the impossible happen everyday: people who create vastly better (100X) tomorrows by building vastly high-performing (100X) teams and culture today.

This is the only way we make money. In VC, if we fail to operationalize peak performance in the people we're invested in, our companies don't survive. We lose our money.

From our world of VC and startups, to corporate and academe-- wherever we find Filipino talent at scale. We bring 100X performance: data-driven, battle-tested, relentlessly honed best practices that have helped us operationalize innovation (problem solving at scale) and a culture of customer ownership (intelligent malasakit!), which are the backbones of 100X performance

This is what it means to Ignite: individuals, teams and organizations to their greatest growth and impact.

JOANA ALBERTO

Managing Partner, Ignite Centre for Peak Performance

Right here, right now
Who, What, How we're 100Xing right now

1

We 100X by 10X.

As VC, we partner with our portfolio companies to drive 100X ROI by 10Xing Customer Impact.

Where “X” means Multiple. The proof of the pudding is in the multiplying.

Here’s the math: 100X Multiples derive from capacity to deliver 10X Customer Impact @Scale; which derives from 100X Culture & Operating System that demands from and empowers each individual/team to keep 10Xing their Customer Impact @Scale.

2

We 100X as a Cohort.

We invest and support up to 8 portfolio companies at a time— we 100X them together, maximizing and accelerating learnings, cross-pollinations, synergies, network effects, etc.

Shoppable

TANGGapp

Motorento

Agenix

Zennya

Ped

dlr

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3

We 100X as First Principle Platforms.

First Principle means the customer problems we're solving cannot be further reduced to a more basic root cause. Thus, our solution is foundational— and therefore...

Platform means many other parties (people, teams, organizations) build on top of our first principle solution in order to run their stack of 2nd/3rd/4th principle solutions.

4

We100X as a Nexus.

Each cohort includes deep partnerships with fellow VCs, startups (beyond our 8 portcos), power institutions (business, government, academe), and super talent.

Our KPI is to max win-win synergies and collabs across our nexus. We are the 100X tide that lifts all boats.

5

We 100X with Exponential Tech & AI-First

Straight from Silicon Valley— we’ve assembled the avengers of AI/tech so we can go full-tilt AI-First in all we do.

AI-First when we build product/tech. AI-First when we build channels and customer acquisition. AI-First when we build revenue and lifetime value. AI-First when we build operations and every aspect of back-end and org infrastructure.

And AI-First for our entire nexus: from our portcos, to our institutional partners (corporate, gov, academe), to super talent we are nurturing. We will make AI-First accessible and easy to implement for all of you.

From Venture Capital to Virtuous Capital.
How our 100X VC drives 100X Operating Systems for all of you

WHY 5VC

Data does not lie. Based on our prior decade of pushing extreme (100X) peak performance (particularly innovation-driven quantum leaps) in both corporate and startup settings, we’ve found that the highest performing individuals and teams consistently use a kind of Virtuous Cycle that powers all kinds of breakthrough (100X) growth.

This Virtuous Cycle holds true for giant corporations as much as for startups, the key difference being velocity and time to impact (big companies take much more time).

HOW IT WORKS

Specifically, peak performers utilize 5 distinct, but interconnected cycles of Virtuous Capital (beyond just financial capital), where each cycle of capital builds on and then builds up the other cycles.

In so doing, these 5 Cycles of Virtuous Capital (5VC) enable the highest levels of (100X) peak performance— a virtuous cycle of growth and success, specifically when measured in financial returns (both personal and corporate ROI), market impact, and unrivaled team morale.

MEET THE 5VC

Feel free to take a quick diagnostic of where you're at with each cycle of capital.

Capacity to continuously grow and build on my authentic sense of self– the deeper and deeper truths about Who I am, Why I’m here, What I’m born to do, What gives me joy, What I care about deeply, etc. Self Capital works like a personal navigation system (GPS) for life: to steer through life’s twists and turns (career, relationships, passion, purpose, mission, etc.); to continuously deepen my commitment, resilience and impact in my chosen paths; and to resist the lures, detours and dead-ends of false ambition, insecurity, fear, doubt, trying to be like others/someone I am not, etc. Self Capital is my capacity to stand for my authentic self in the journey of life.

💬 Where I’m at with my Self Capital: 0-10
Capacity to continuously grow and build on my authentic sense of self– the deeper and deeper truths about Who I am, Why I’m here, What I’m born to do, What gives me joy, What I care about deeply, etc. Self Capital works like a personal navigation system (GPS) for life: to steer through life’s twists and turns (career, relationships, passion, purpose, mission, etc.); to continuously deepen my commitment, resilience and impact in my chosen paths; and to resist the lures, detours and dead-ends of false ambition, insecurity, fear, doubt, trying to be like others/someone I am not, etc. Self Capital is my capacity to stand for my authentic self in the journey of life.

💬 Where I’m at with my Self Capital: 0-10
Capacity to continuously grow and build on my authentic sense of self– the deeper and deeper truths about Who I am, Why I’m here, What I’m born to do, What gives me joy, What I care about deeply, etc. Self Capital works like a personal navigation system (GPS) for life: to steer through life’s twists and turns (career, relationships, passion, purpose, mission, etc.); to continuously deepen my commitment, resilience and impact in my chosen paths; and to resist the lures, detours and dead-ends of false ambition, insecurity, fear, doubt, trying to be like others/someone I am not, etc. Self Capital is my capacity to stand for my authentic self in the journey of life.

💬 Where I’m at with my Self Capital: 0-10
Capacity to continuously grow and build on the # of hi-caliber people who know what I authentically stand for and are thus eager to collaborate with me (because I fit/complement what they authentically stand for); and vice verse, # of hi-caliber people I know and am eager to collaborate with. Network Capital is measured in quality, not quantity of network. In fact, a bigger network of the wrong people leads to negative Network Capital– I will simply get into more trouble more often with more people! Network Capital is heavily influenced by Self Capital– the more we know who we really are and what we really want in life, the better we will attract the right kind of people.

💬 Where I’m at with my Network Capital: 0-10
Capacity to continuously grow and build on my authentic sense of self– the deeper and deeper truths about Who I am, Why I’m here, What I’m born to do, What gives me joy, What I care about deeply, etc. Self Capital works like a personal navigation system (GPS) for life: to steer through life’s twists and turns (career, relationships, passion, purpose, mission, etc.); to continuously deepen my commitment, resilience and impact in my chosen paths; and to resist the lures, detours and dead-ends of false ambition, insecurity, fear, doubt, trying to be like others/someone I am not, etc. Self Capital is my capacity to stand for my authentic self in the journey of life.

💬 Where I’m at with my Self Capital: 0-10
Capacity to continuously grow and build on the # of hi-caliber people I am actually collaborating with (be it via employment, projects, investments, boards, advisors, partnerships, etc). Human Capital is thus one of the most critical direct drivers of Success Capital. In our increasingly cutthroat knowledge-driven markets, nothing will help or hinder my capacity to create/deliver value like the the talented, passionate people I have on my side. In 5VC, Human Capital is directly rooted in Network Capital, which in turn is heavily influenced by Self Capital.  

💬 Where I’m at with my Human Capital: 0-10
Capacity to continuously grow and build on my authentic sense of self– the deeper and deeper truths about Who I am, Why I’m here, What I’m born to do, What gives me joy, What I care about deeply, etc. Self Capital works like a personal navigation system (GPS) for life: to steer through life’s twists and turns (career, relationships, passion, purpose, mission, etc.); to continuously deepen my commitment, resilience and impact in my chosen paths; and to resist the lures, detours and dead-ends of false ambition, insecurity, fear, doubt, trying to be like others/someone I am not, etc. Self Capital is my capacity to stand for my authentic self in the journey of life.

💬 Where I’m at with my Self Capital: 0-10
Capacity to continuously grow and build on my value/Impact created and thus value captured, as measured in my financial performance (salary, income, net worth, ROI, etc.) and overall career/business growth. More and more in our fast-paced tech-driven world, my Success Capital is disproportionately driven by my capacity to deliver hi-impact innovations and solutions that work at scale. Which is why my Success Capital is so heavily dependent on my Human Capital– because this kind of hi-impact innovation and creative problem-solving demands the very best people and teams.

💬 Where I’m at with my Success Capital: 0-10
Capacity to continuously grow and build on my authentic sense of self– the deeper and deeper truths about Who I am, Why I’m here, What I’m born to do, What gives me joy, What I care about deeply, etc. Self Capital works like a personal navigation system (GPS) for life: to steer through life’s twists and turns (career, relationships, passion, purpose, mission, etc.); to continuously deepen my commitment, resilience and impact in my chosen paths; and to resist the lures, detours and dead-ends of false ambition, insecurity, fear, doubt, trying to be like others/someone I am not, etc. Self Capital is my capacity to stand for my authentic self in the journey of life.

💬 Where I’m at with my Self Capital: 0-10

Capacity to continuously grow and build on my personal sense of joy, meaning, impact and fulfillment– this is ultimately what we want in life. When we reflect on the prior 4 cycles of capital, this is where all roads lead. From Self Capital, to Network and Human Capital, to Success Capital– everything we do comes down to how rich we are in joy, meaning, impact and fulfillment.


💬 Where I’m at with my Life Capital: 0-10

LEARN MORE ABOUT 5VC FITNESS
LEARN MORE ABOUT
5VC FITNESS

Learn how to grow your virtuous capitals in 3-month sprints

We Want You
How to bring 100X Peak Performance to your circles

You are a person of influence, that's why you're part of our Ignite nexus. Help us bring 5VC and 100X Peak Performance to every corner of Filipino society-- especially where we find Filipino talent by the hundreds or thousands.

THE GUILD
100X for Colleges & Universities
100X: IGNITE OPERATING SYSTEM (O/S)
100X for Large Organizations
LIFEPAD
100X for Coaches, Culture, Team-Building

YOUNG FELLOWS
100X for Student Leaders
NATIONAL INNOVATORS INITIATIVE
100X for LGUs, MSMEs & Communities
PH1000
100X for Talent Marketplace

10 Chapters of our Vision Story.
Help us write (and win!) Chapters 4-6...

IGNITE 100X: From NUKE NOW to END GAME

How to power 100X ROI & Impact in Filipino VC/Startups-- and from there scale 100X Peak Performance into an O/S that powers millions of individuals, teams, and organizations globally.

01

100X VC, 100X STARTUPS

Invest in super talent and drive 100X ROI & Impact.

Real Labs: VC Portfolio (extreme sports, multiple startups, diverse fields) accelerates Ignite's 100X R&D and cross-pollination of what really works to drive real 100X Peak Performance.

02

100X FOR HUMANS: FROM VC TO 5VC (VIRTUOUS CAPITAL)

Humanize 100X: address whole spectrum/hierarchy of human needs/wants (not just performance).

5VC is Ignite's humanistic whole-person model applicable to/by individuals, teams, orgs: (1) Self-Capital; (2) Network Capital; (3) Human Capital; (4) Success (Value Creation & Capture) Capital; (5) Life Capital.

03

100X O/S: IGNITE CENTRE FOR PEAK PERFORMANCE

Run dedicated platform to power 100X O/S @Scale.

Add/Integrate: Fitness Metaphor & Mechanics (Content/Workouts x Frequency x Continuity); Data; Science; Art; Media; Tech & AI. Thus, IGNITE 100X O/S relentlessly gets better (deeper, more scale, greater impact) everyday, forever.

04

100X WORK: IGNITE O/S FOR BIZ & GOVT (EMPLOYERS)

Ignite 100X O/S to power Filipino talent @Scale (Demand/Employers).

Early Adopter Focus. Biz/Gov orgs that employ Filipino talent by the hundreds/thousands-- ROI as powerful incentives to adopt 100X O/S.

05

100X STUDENT LEADERS: YOUNG FELLOWS IIR

Ignite 100X O/S to power Filipino talent @Scale (Supply/Talent).

Early Adopter Focus. Full scholarship 100X-In-Residence Fellowships for college student leaders who already demo 2X behavior/instincts. Show 10X win-win for Talent Demand-Supply. YF-IIR also creates For-Students, By-Students presence in 100s of campuses.

06

100X COLLEGES: THE GUILD 100 FINISHING SCHOOL

Scale I00X O/S to power 100,000s of graduates annually. (Supply/Talent).

100X O/S doesn't replace school-- students still take their majors and classes. Instead, 100X O/S complements-- like a finishing school that bridges graduates to be 100X Peak Performers in the real world.

07

100X TALENT MARKETPLACE: SKILLING, CREDENTIALING

De facto we would radically transform PH Talent Marketplace-- in the way talent supply is 100X skilled and credentialed and in the way employers demand 100X skills and credentials.

To drive this new Talent Marketplace 2.0 will require new signaling mechanisms @Scale-- to replace School/Major/GPA/etc with more 100X-credible signals.

08

100X CLASS: ARMY OF FILIPINO 100X INNOVATORS

In so doing we would birth a new class of Filipino Citizen Innovators, who can solve systemic problems @Scale.

Innovation does not happen without Innovators. 100X Peak Performance (ROI, Impact, Scale) does not happen without 100X Peak Performers.

09

100X PH: ATTACK WICKED PROBLEMS @SCALE

100X impact on poverty, health, education, livelihood................

Name the wicked problem-- finally we have an army of Filipino Innovators who learned and trained 100X in context-- in their own locales where these wicked problems persist. Who better to solve these systemic problems @Scale.

10

100X WORLD: FILIPINO IMPACT AT GLOBAL SCALE

The above* are not uniquely Filipino: they are global problems that persist in every nation and society. In Ignite 100X O/S, do we have a shot at being the first Filipino venture that impacts humanity at a global scale?

*In essence: education/skilling systems ill-fitted to innovation, thus wicked problems persist and remain unaddressed.

Ignite Founders
Meet our resident 100Xers

Andre Yap

CEO and Founder
Ignite House of Innovation

I lead Ignite’s venture capital activities, from sourcing and evaluating investments, to actively supporting investees in their road to 100X ROI and impact. We’re often among a founder’s first investors so I get the full monty of what it takes to 100X. It’s my lifelong obsession— to R&D, test and iterate the very best methods (what really works) to help teams achieve 100X Peak Performance. I then channel 100X, not just to Ignite VC, but also to corporate, educational and government institutions— wherever we can 100X Filipino talent by the thousands. That’s the way we’re attacking wicked problems and moving 120 million Filipinos forward— by focusing on talent and performance. I was born and bred in Manila, educated by the Jesuits and Opus Dei, and have 3 degrees from the US (Yale, NYU, Fordham), where I lived 15 years and grew as a serial out-of-the-boxer. In 2009, the US government gave me US Permanent Residence on the Basis of Exceptional Ability in the National Interest, a formal designation relating to my pioneering work in innovation, including founding CUBED (“Cube Ed”), the Center for University-Based Enterprise & Development. I came home to Manila in 2011 and have been pursuing my lifelong mission to power 100X through Ignite House of Innovation, Home of Innovators. 100X will always be about people, people, people.

Joana Alberto

Co Founder & Managing Partner
100X: Ignite Centre for Peak Performance

I am the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of 100X: Ignite Center for Peak Performance, where I empower individuals to achieve 100X peak performance. With nearly three decades of experience at two leading airlines, both locally and abroad, I played a pivotal role in revolutionizing premium inflight service and managing performance while training leaders from over a hundred nationalities in an Innovation Academy. Today, I am at the forefront of adapting the 100X methodology—proven through application, testing, and validation with startups—for effective implementation in schools and corporations. As a proud graduate of the University of the Philippines, I am committed to uplifting my fellow countrymen and contributing to national progress by cultivating superhero innovators at scale.

Meet some of the 100Xers we are privileged
to support in their 100X ventures

DAVID FOOTE

Founder & CEO, ZENNYA HEALTH
Healthtech - Programatic Health

REBECCA KERSCH

Founder & CEO, TANGGAPP
Fintech - Relational Fund Transfer

CLARRY HERRERA

Founder & CEO, AGENIX
Martech - Agentic AI

NEL LAYGO

Founder & CEO, PEDDLR
ERP/Fintech - MSME Mobile Solutions

VAIBHAV SRIVASTAVA

Founder & CEO, MOTORENTO
Logisticstech - Last Mile Goods & Services

ADITI KAPOOR

Co-founder & CMO, MOTORENTO
Logisticstech - Last Mile Goods & Services

KIERAN MARTIN

Co-founder & CFO, MOTORENTO
Logisticstech - Last Mile Goods & Services

CARLO SILVA

Founder & CEO, SHOPPABLE
B2B Ecommerce

CHRIS BLANQUERA

Co-founder & CTO, SHOPPABLE
B2B Ecommerce

SAM BLANQUERA

Co-founder & COO, SHOPPABLE
B2B Ecommerce

MARK REYES

Co-founder & CRO, SHOPPABLE
B2B Ecommerce

GERALD ORIGENES

Co-Founder & Director, GUILD100
Edu/HRtech

SHAHAB SHABIBI

Founder & CEO, MACHINE VENTURES
Venture Builder

FAROUK MERALLI

Founder & CEO, SwipeRx/mClinica
Healthtech - Pharmacy Solutions

TONY MELOTO

Founder, PARAISO BUE ZONE
Sustainable Agri, Food, Health

PAULO CAMPOS

Founding General Managing Partner, KAYA FOUNDERS
Venture Capital

RAY ALIMURUNG

General Partner, KAYA FOUNDERS
Venture Capital

EXPERIENCE 100X

Come see the power of 100X for yourself

© 2024 Ignite House. All Rights Reserved.
TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY POLICY
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© 2024 Ignite House. All Rights Reserved.
TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY POLICY
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Old School Letter
from our CEO

Layer 1

We didn't skip a beat. Started 2024 the way we ended 2023: full throttle on our investment mandate to find and fund 30 of the country’s most ignited founders.

•

Q4 2023 saw us pull the trigger on 5 iconic investments and we’re on track to exceed that in 1H 2024 (more on this later, including our 3 key investment criteria and how we’ve expanded our venture capital focus to include steady ships, besides the usual rocket ships).

•

In January we broke all records with our biggest Ignite ever. Partnering with Ateneo’s DOST-backed Blue Nest Technology Business Incubator and the Ateneo Intellectual Property Office, we gathered some of Manila’s most badass founders, investors, and CEOs, along with our most promising young professionals and student leaders. For 5+ hours on a chill January afternoon, we ignited on the common ground of Peak Performance and Peak Living in 2024.

More Than VC

Our January highlight was the launch of 5VC FITNESS, a hybrid app, online and face-to-face platform for individuals, teams, and organizations to methodically and measurably grow their 5 Cycles of Virtuous Capital in 3-month sprints.

Check out 5vc.io:

See how 5VC can power you and your teams to unrivaled growth and performance;

See how you can partner with Ignite to bring 5VC to schools, corporations, SMEs and LGUs all over the country. This is one of our major KPIs in 2024-- to build partnerships (think franchising!) that bring 5VC FITNESS to every corner of Filipino society.

Fund 30 of PH’s Most Ignited

January was also our public unveiling of IGNITE VC 2024: our quest to find and fund 30 of the country’s most Ignited founders, targeting to be the first money in and invest PHP5-10MM per founder in the next 18-24 months.

Here are the 3 most important finds we’re looking to invest in:

1) Founders who are obsessed with solving important problems at scale (where revenue and customers grow much faster and bigger than costs).

2) Founders who are obsessed with customer impact (where everything they do is built around continuously solving customer pains).

3) Founders who are obsessed with being great at execution and culture (because this is how they’re going to keep great people happy and full).

If you’re our kind of founder, we will invest in either of 2 scenarios:

1) Your venture was birthed as a rocket ship (to achieve massive scale within 3-5 years).

2) You’re currently a steady ship that can be transformed into a rocket ship. A steady ship is a solid business that is currently profitable (or can be within the next 6-12 months) and has a great product that delights customers in ways that are important to them.

Rocket ship or steady ship, we invest when we see that our Ignite capital, including our 5VC (5 Cycles of Virtuous Capital) can drive 10-100X++ growth in your venture.

Want to explore an investment from Ignite? Pls message us here and tell us what you have in mind. We’ll pick it up from there.

That’s all for now. Let’s keep igniting.

Andre A. Yap
February 2024

Joana Alberto is a CoFounder and Managing Partner of Ignite House of Innovations and Ni2, the National Innovators Initiative to power 100,000 Filipino innovators by 2023. She’s also the Managing Director of the Guild by Ni2, a dedicated team that focuses on career and OJT acceleration of college students and fresh grads at scale. The space that she holds is all about nurturing individuals to drive peak performance by discovering Ignite GPS (Genius, Purpose, Service) our personal navigation system that leads us to fulfill our highest potential, under Ignite Centre for Peak Experiences.

Before joining Ignite, Joana served the aviation industry for almost three decades while thriving in the field of entrepreneurship — from designing and manufacturing her own line of arts and crafts to selling dry goods, managing a flower shop and being an events designer, and never leaving out her social responsibility via community service. She was never content with just being employed.

“I’ve had many twists and turns in a career that has brought me to hundreds of cities all over the world, first as a flight attendant and cabin manager, then in HQ. After 27 years in aviation, I clipped my wings, and packed the manuscript that I worked on for 4 years entitled, #Metamorphosis: The Ultimate Makeover Manual for 40-Year Olds and Beyond, along with my certifications on wellness coaching and various healing modalities. In a matter of months, I went from wearing two hats in the airline, managing inflight performance while designing and delivering leadership programs to 120 nationalities, to leaving all that and holing up in India for a month – to learn yoga, find myself, reinvent my future.”

I was 47 then, a wife and mother who had spent the best years of my life flying in and out of my family’s life. I had been an expat for so long. I was finally coming home to Manila with a new career in corporate wellness. I thought that was it, my final chapter, time to get settled before entering my golden era.

 

But no.

 

A wise friend once asked me… Joana, you’ve been in a perfect storm! You’re an extreme empath and you’ve met, served and managed so many more people from so many more countries in 27 years than most people do in 3 lifetimes: those dreams and pains and wants of so many people must have a way of sticking on you, haunting you, no?

 

Yes, exactly; they’ve haunted me.“

Before I jumped into corporate, I designed a program for Filipina overseas workers – for people and pain I know so well. I designed a 6-month journey that would help them create their Dream Life Masterplan. I included all the right things I did and didn’t do, all the research and study, trial and error, consulting friends and experts, and sleepless nights in search for my truth. So OFWs long separated from their families can speed up their coming home — prepared. Well, my Dream Life Masterplan never reached a single soul. My intention was pure and noble. But I was alone for a huge mission.

Fast forward to 2017. A friend invited me to an Ignite gathering and I was never the same again. I found my space, found my missing pieces, found my partners and team. And I found the Ignite GPS: Genius, Purpose, Service. It was my finally embracing my own GPS that really put me on a new journey and challenge: to take care of people beyond wellness, so they can be whole – so they can live their deepest truth and so fulfill their highest potential and greatest promise. That’s what I found in the Ignite GPS.

Today, Joana is leading a team of Gen Z’s to launch a human + app coached program to help colleges students find clarity in their life-career direction. She also just launched the pilot project of her startup  —which partners with farm owners to create viable and sustainable ventures that support agri-eco tourism, farm based co-creation opportunities, tech guided wellness experiences and socio-economic development initiatives. At the rate she’s going, nothing can stop her from founding more winning innovations in the next coming years. A genuine Iska — a graduate of the University of the Philippines, her mission no doubt is to make an impact on the lives of her kabayans, dreaming to make her country a better place.

Andre Yap is the founder and CEO of Ignite House of Innovation, which invests and operates in venture capital, technology, media, education, healthcare, energy, hospitality, food, agri, HR and enterprise solutions. 

Andre also serves as Executive Chairman of Ni2, The Philippines’ National Innovators Initiative to power 100,000 Filipino Innovators across key sectors of society. Ni2 is a public-private partnership with national and local governments, business and non-profit organizations, and the academe.

As a serial founder and startup investor, Andre built Ignite House to be an innovator for innovators – to R&D, build, operate and continuously invest in proprietary systems, platforms, programs and technologies in order to nurture, scale and sustain innovation capabilities, open collaborations and disruptive opportunities uniting key sectors of society (business, education, socio-civic, government, startups, investors), with the vision of establishing the Filipino as a uniquely disruptive force in global innovation.

Ignite’s mission is deeply personal to Andre: to build and invest in transcendent ventures by building up and investing in transcendent founders and teams, advancing his core belief that innovation is the business (i.e., building sustainable operating models) of solving society’s wicked problems. In 2018 Andre authored the Ignite Manifesto and has relentlessly pushed its growth as an Operating System that has helped thousands of individuals and teams channel deeply personal GPS (Genius, Purpose, Service) into shared Mission and Collaboration, into Innovation and Impact.

Andre was born and raised in Manila and educated by the Jesuits and the Opus Dei, before moving onto the US, where he earned 3 degrees (Yale, Fordham, NYU) and lived for 15 years. In 2009, based on his pioneering work with CUBED (“Cube Ed”), the Center for University-Based Enterprise & Development, which Andre founded as an innovation accelerator and ecosystem in the state of Connecticut, the US Government granted Andre the status of Permanent Resident on the Basis of Exceptional Ability in the National Interest of the United States of America. 

Nevertheless, Andre’s heart remains fully in the Philippines, where he wants to do his best work and most meaningful impact. He has called Manila home again since 2011, when he moved back with his wife and their 2 dazzling boys. 

 

“I’ve pursued my career as a series of ventures and adventures… it’s a path that doesn’t look or feel like any other, that rarely ever really feels like work… precisely by challenging established norms, relentlessly going out of my box and into many other boxes, appreciating how seemingly disparate realities tie together, threading constellations where others barely even see the dots.”

 

From choosing Yale for its public-private management focus and then following it up with a second Masters in Interactive Marketing at NYU; to deciding against the post-MBA rush into investment banking or management consulting so that I can start the YGroupe and really understand the leverage in my New York, New Haven, Manila connections; to starting CUBED despite my perfectly zero knowledge of tech, incubators or the academe; to choosing to come home to Manila despite CUBED’s success and the US government’s offer of Permanent Residence; to the long and winding road of ventures, investments and partnerships that have now led to the National Innovators Initiative and cross-sector collaborations, not just across industries, but tying together national and local governments and hundreds of schools and MSMEs. I’ve really enjoyed the thrill of going into frontier space that I know nothing about, that no one knows anything about, and making sense and structure out of all that chaos and ambiguity – building value, outcomes, impact where nothing but deep need existed.

 

“Innovation: that’s what many people call it. For me, I see myself as an artist no less than Da Vinci or Picasso – business is my canvas and if I’m honest and brave there is no other way to paint but my way. Above all, I see innovation as my humbling participation in God’s ongoing work of creation – to help make things new and better all the time and to share that fire and capacity for renewal with everyone I meet. As we say, to ignite all we touch to live their deepest truth and so fulfill their highest potential and greatest promise— for joy, meaning, success, and impact; a life fully-lived.”

Your people don’t have to suffer.
Gift them the future they deserve.