Where Are the Baguio Startups?

Where Are the Baguio Startups?

I get asked this a lot. Sometimes by people who genuinely want to know. Sometimes by people who already believe the answer is "nowhere."

I want to be honest about both sides of that question — because the truth is more complicated than either answer. And frankly, the truth is a little uncomfortable.

The Numbers Are There. The Startups Are Harder to Find.

Between 2023 and 2024, I was managing a portfolio of more than 15 startups inside a university-based Technology Business Incubator. On top of that, I was sitting on panels assessing the technology readiness levels of more than 200 capstone projects — many of which could credibly become real startups, solving real community problems, if someone just helped them take the next step. And then there were the demo days. I was evaluating upward of 300 technopreneurship outputs per school year. All of this from a single university.

Multiply that by the number of universities in Baguio and the Cordillera. The math gets interesting very quickly.

So the potential is clearly here. The question that actually needs answering is: where does it go after the demo day ends?

The brutal truth is I think most of it goes nowhere. The capstone gets a grade. The demo day gets applause. The semester ends. And the idea that could have been something real gets filed away with the thesis and forgotten.

That is the first problem we need to name out loud.

2023: Traction Without a Local Capital Market

Back in 2023, we had startups in our portfolio already generating traction. Real users. Real revenue signals. Real founders who had made real sacrifices to get there. Our philosophy was bootstrap-first, and that was the right call. Bootstrapping builds discipline and forces founders to validate before they build. But eventually, bootstrap gets you to a ceiling.

We knew we needed to map investors. TARAKI, the regional ReSEED consortium, was already doing work in this direction, trying to connect dots across the ecosystem and identify capital sources for emerging ventures. We were doing the same thing at the ground level: attending every national competition we could, traveling to Metro Manila, trying to get our founders in front of the people who could fund them. Not because Baguio had nothing to offer, but because the local capital infrastructure simply did not exist yet.

The mentors were here. Some of the most generous, knowledgeable, and genuinely mission-driven mentors I have worked with anywhere were here in Baguio. The kind who would sit with a founder for three hours on a Saturday and ask nothing in return. That part was never the gap. The gap was the money, and the money was always somewhere else.

2026: Some Things Have Shifted. Some Have Not.

Three years later, I am watching something change on the funding side.

Circle Works by VIVITA is actively supporting circular economy ventures here in the Cordillera, with boots on the ground running programs in Tabuk and Baguio. SIGLAT, the innovation hub established by the Local Government of Baguio City, is now distributing innovation grants directly to local entrepreneurs. The UNDP, ILO, and ITC just ran a simultaneous multi-site digital and AI skills workshop across four Cordillera provinces in a single week. DOST-PCIEERD's WHWise program funded a Baguio-based founder to the tune of ₱4.75 million. The DEPDev Innovation Grants opened a ₱7.5 million funding window for any SUC or LGU in the region. DICT-CAR is rolling out the AI4MSMEs training series and the Digital PINAS programme actively reaching communities across Northern Luzon. Foxmont, the country's most active venture capital firm, just announced plans to deploy ₱4 billion into the Philippine startup ecosystem.

The capital is no longer only in Manila. Some of it is here. More of it is pointed in our direction than it has ever been.

But here is what I also need to say: TARAKI-CAR's funding cycle ended in December 2025. That consortium was one of the most important coordination mechanisms the regional ecosystem had. With its funding gone, at least for now, we should expect fewer coordinated innovation initiatives in the near term unless something or someone fills that gap deliberately. The question of who does that is one the ecosystem has not answered yet.

The opportunities are here. The funding is showing up. And the ecosystem activity is still low.

That gap deserves a harder look.

The Honest State of Things

I have been attending startup and innovation events in this region for years. And I keep seeing the same faces.

That is not a criticism of the people in those rooms. Many of them are doing genuinely important work. But when the same fifty people show up to the same events, year after year, it tells you something about the reach of the ecosystem. We are not converting the pipeline. We have the demo days. We have the capstone presentations. We have the technopreneurship outputs. And then most of it disappears. The founders graduate, get a job, or move on. The startups that showed real promise in February are nowhere by December.

Here are the brutal truths I think we need to sit with.

In 2022, Baguio's startup ecosystem was ranked in the top five in the Philippines. Today, we are not even in the top ten. That is not a coincidence. It reflects a real gap between the momentum we had and what we have been able to sustain since then.

There are students right now at every university in this city who are sitting on ideas that could become real businesses. They are not building them. Not because they are lazy or unambitious — but because nobody has made a compelling enough case that building is possible here, that support actually exists, and that people will show up for them if they take the risk.

There are researchers in our universities producing work with genuine commercial potential that will never leave the journal it gets published in, because the bridge between research and market does not exist in any functional way here.

There are professionals in Baguio, working stable jobs, with skills and insights that could solve real regional problems, who have never been seriously invited into the startup conversation because that conversation keeps happening in the same rooms with the same people.

The talent is here. The ideas are here. The funding is starting to show up. What is missing is the activation. And that is on us, the ecosystem, as much as it is on the founders who have not stepped forward yet.

What Needs to Change

The ecosystem needs to stop measuring itself by vanity metrics. The number of events held. The number of participants. The number of pitch competitions organized. These are not outcomes. They are activities. And when we confuse activity with impact, we produce a lot of busy work and very few actual startups.

One-time pitch events are not enough. A founder who pitches in March and receives no follow-up by June has not been helped. They have been given a microphone and sent home. We need programs with continuity — support systems that follow a founder from idea to validation to market, not just to the end of a semester. Mentorship that persists. Funding that arrives at the right stage, not just when a grant cycle happens to be open.

We need to enable more enablers. The ecosystem cannot scale if only the same small group of people is running programs, mentoring founders, and doing ecosystem coordination simultaneously. That model burns out the people who care most and never reaches the people who are still waiting for a reason to try. We need to invest in building enabler capacity deliberately and systematically.

We need to be proactive in a way we have not been before. The opportunities are here. DICT-CAR is expanding digital programs into the region. SIGLAT is active. Circle Works is present. DEPDev grants are open. But none of these will automatically find the founders who need them. Someone has to do the mapping, the outreach, and the connection work. Someone has to go into the universities, talk to the students finishing their capstones, and ask them: what happens next for you and your idea? Someone has to call the professional with the solution nobody has funded yet and say, this is the right moment.

Most importantly, we need to seriously strengthen how we do industry-academe-government collaboration. The university produces the ideas. The government provides the programs. The industry provides the market. But right now these three operate in separate rooms, speaking to each other mostly through formal agreements that rarely produce the kind of ongoing, honest, working relationships that move startups forward. We need to change that architecture. Not with another MOU signing. With actual recurring touchpoints, shared data, and mutual accountability for real outcomes.

A Direct Challenge

If you are a student who just finished a capstone project that could solve a real problem, what is stopping you from taking it further? The grant you need might already exist. The mentor you need might be one message away. The program that could validate your idea might be running right now.

If you are a researcher with work that has commercial potential, have you actually tried to move it toward a product? Or have you assumed that path was not for you?

If you are a professional in Baguio with an idea you have been carrying for a year or two, what exactly are you waiting for? The ecosystem is not going to come knocking. You have to walk in.

And if you are an enabler, an educator, a government official, or anyone who touches the innovation ecosystem in this region: are the programs you are running producing outcomes you can point to six months later? If not, it is worth asking why, and being honest about the answer.

What I Still Believe

I believe the Baguio and Cordillera startup ecosystem is producing more founders than it surfaces. I believe most of them are invisible not because they are doing nothing but because we have not built the infrastructure to find them, support them, and tell their story.

I believe the ecosystem needs to be honest with itself about the gap between what we say we are doing and what is actually happening on the ground. Good intentions are not enough. Well-attended events are not enough. We need programs that create real outcomes, and we need to measure those outcomes honestly.

And I believe this window, right now in 2026, with more funding available than the region has ever had access to, is one we cannot afford to waste.

So here is the question I want to leave with everyone in this ecosystem, whether you are a founder, a mentor, an enabler, a government official, or a student with an idea you have not told anyone about yet:

What are you going to do differently this year?

Because the ecosystem does not change until the people inside it do. And this region has been waiting long enough.

If you are a founder or aspiring entrepreneur in Baguio and the Cordillera, here is where to start:

University-Based Incubators in Baguio-Benguet If you are a student or a professional with a startup idea, your nearest entry point is your university's incubator. All three are active and worth reaching out to directly. UC InTTO: facebook.com/UCInTTO UPB SILBI: facebook.com/upbsilbitbi BSU TBI: facebook.com/atbi.benguet

Funding Circle Works is offering seed funding opportunities worth up to ₱1.6 million for circular economy ventures in the Cordillera. If you are building a solution around waste, sustainable materials, or a future beyond plastic, this is the most accessible grant in the region right now. Apply here: facebook.com/share/p/17XqkXx9pf

Local Innovation Hubs SIGLAT, the innovation hub of the Baguio City Local Government, is actively supporting startups and entrepreneurs in the city. Reach out and introduce yourself. facebook.com/siglat

Government Programs DICT-CAR and DOST-CAR are running ongoing digital, science, and innovation programs across the region. Follow both to stay current on opportunities, training, and grants that are open. DICT-CAR: facebook.com/dict.car DOST-CAR: facebook.com/dostcar.gov.ph

Community The Baguio Startup Network is where a lot of the founder community conversation happens. If you are not in the group, join it. facebook.com/groups/255544260041991