The Philippines has reached an enormous milestone: it has achieved just that the primary unicorn startup.
Revolution Donedeveloper of designer prefabricated homes has raised the value of a Series B round co-founded by Singapore VC K2, valuing the corporate at greater than $1 billion, in response to two sources aware of the deal.
This makes Revolution – which turns two years old in December – considered one of, if not the fastest to succeed in billion-dollar status in Southeast Asia, one source said, which was confirmed by Technology in Asia data.
The startup’s recent distinguished investor, K2, was founded by enterprise capitalist Ozi Amanat, who is thought for his investments in Alibaba and Twitter before their public offerings.
K2 has several unicorns in its portfolio – Spotify, Magic Leap, Paytm and Palantir.
“Large international family offices also participated in this round,” the second source said. We have contacted Revolution and K2 for his or her statements.
It’s a rare disruption story within the Philippines’ nascent tech scene, where startup programs and policies, in addition to financing, have yet to meet up with neighboring markets.
“We need more success stories like Revolution to inspire other young people to take risks and start their own companies,” said Butch Meily, president of Philippine incubator-accelerator Ideaspace and Qbo Innovation Hub.
The founding father of the startup, Robbie Antonio, belongs to considered one of the richest families within the Philippines, who built their fortune on real estate.
A voracious art collector, Antonio is the mastermind behind his family’s billion-dollar projects with big names akin to Forbes Media, Armani/Casa, Versace Home, Paris Hilton and the Trump group.
He turned to entrepreneurship to make designer homes reasonably priced to more people.
His company sells prefabricated houses designed by world-famous architects and designers akin to Zaha Hadid, David Salle, Tom Dixon and Marcel Wanders. Home prices average $120,000. They will be ordered on the corporate’s website and shipped anywhere on the planet inside no less than 90 days.
It has booked $110 million price of orders and has just raised a $15.4 million round from investors like 500 Startups, which fought hard to get a bit of the deal. “The company didn’t need raises. I had to convince them to take my money for added value and not for cash,” 500 managing partner Khailee Ng previously said.
“This is truly a milestone for the Philippine startup ecosystem. We hope that this will put us on the map as a country capable of producing intellectual property and product technologies,” said Jojo Flores, co-founder of the Plug and Play accelerator. “I also expect that this event will free up some investment capital from traditional brick-and-mortar businesses to our technology startups and our corporations to begin integrating startups into their businesses.”
“This achievement is a clear call to first-, second- and third-generation families who have invested heavily in the Philippines to take a hard look at how they can innovate in their current markets and open up new markets and segments for themselves,” commented Paul Pajo, co-owner and founding father of Smart Developer Network, a developer community program within the Philippines.
Source : TechInAsia, http://news.abs-cbn.com/business/11/14/17/philippines-first-1-billion-startup-hopes-to-inspire-entrepreneurs
