Kaya Founders

Paulo Campos and Lisa Gokongwei-Cheng serve as the firm's Managing Partner and Partner, respectively. Campos previously led Zalora Philippines, while Gokongwei-Cheng ran Summit Media, the country's largest magazine publisher. The two anchor the investment committee, drawing on their operator experience in retail, media, and e-commerce. Day-to-day sourcing and diligence are supported by a lean team and a network of venture partners across Southeast Asia.

The firm leans heavily on the operating networks of its two founding partners, who between them cover Philippine retail, media, and consumer internet deeply. Kaya Founders also runs an active venture-building practice that identifies talented founding teams before they formally incorporate. This close-to-the-ground posture allows it to see deals in the Philippines that funds based purely in Singapore often miss. It is not a spray-and-pray seed investor; its pipeline is concentrated and relationship-driven.

Kaya Founders is structured as a venture capital firm, not a family office. It raises discretionary capital from external limited partners and has publicly announced multiple fund vintages. Its second fund, Kaya Founders Fund II, targets $25 million. The firm's principals do not manage a single-family balance sheet alongside the fund.

Kaya Founders executes direct equity investments and follow-on SPVs. It does not operate as a fund-of-funds and does not make commitments into third-party VC vehicles. The firm's model is to concentrate its capital and operating resources exclusively in company-level positions, primarily at pre-seed and seed stages.

The firm has not published a formal exclusion list, but its portfolio and stated focus suggest it avoids deep tech and hardware plays with long R&D cycles, as well as capital-intensive infrastructure projects. Its generalist early-stage mandate is constrained by a bias toward asset-light software and platform businesses that solve distinctly Southeast Asian distribution, regulatory, or payments bottlenecks. It has not signaled interest in defense, space, or pure life sciences.

Kaya Founders co-invests alongside other early-stage regional funds, particularly in later seed rounds where it can contribute operating expertise and local market access in addition to capital. It has participated in rounds alongside global and regional VCs, though it prefers to lead or co-lead its initial entry check. The firm's venture-building capacity makes it an attractive co-investor for GPs that lack on-the-ground operational support in the Philippines.

Managing Partner Paulo Campos built and led Zalora Philippines, the Rocket Internet-backed fashion e-commerce platform, giving him direct exposure to scaling a marketplace in a logistics-challenged market. Partner Lisa Gokongwei-Cheng ran Summit Media, the Philippines' largest magazine and digital content publisher, which gave her distribution expertise and a deep understanding of Filipino consumer behavior. This combined e-commerce and media pedigree is the firm's core operating edge.