Launchgarage

Launchgarage

Launchgarage began as a grassroots innovation community in Manila before formalizing an investment arm that now makes early-stage commitments across the Philippines and select Southeast Asian markets. Managing Partner Jay Fajardo, a repeat founder whose exits include the sale of ProudCloud to Snapchat parent Snap Inc., brings operator credibility to a firm that explicitly targets the pre-seed and seed funding gap. The firm's model draws from Fajardo's own experience navigating the region's fragmented early-capital landscape — a structural challenge that leaves post-accelerator startups without a clear bridge to Series A. Launchgarage invests across enterprise SaaS, fintech, digital health, agritech, and consumer platforms. The firm participates in rounds ranging from pre-seed to seed, typically deploying initial tickets under $500,000 alongside angel syndicates and regional micro-VCs. Confirmed portfolio positions include Edukasyon.ph, an education-to-employment platform acquired by a regional education group, and PayMongo, the Philippine payments infrastructure company that processed over $120 million in transactions within its first three years of operation. Geographic focus centers on Metro Manila but extends to emerging startup nodes in Cebu and Davao, with opportunistic co-investments in Indonesia. Launchgarage operates with a lean team under Fajardo's direction, supplementing investment activity with a venture-building program that originated from its community roots. The firm has not publicly disclosed total committed capital. Adjacent to its fund activities, Launchgarage maintains ties to the Philippine startup ecosystem through accelerator-style cohorts and corporate innovation partnerships — a dual structure that surfaces deal flow while generating fee income from corporate clients seeking exposure to digital transformation. Launchgarage's structural differentiation lies in its hybrid origin story: a community operator that evolved into a formal early-stage investor. This gives the firm sourcing advantages in a market where the most promising founders emerge from hackathons, university labs, and informal founder networks that institutional allocators rarely penetrate. The combination of Fajardo's exit track record and the firm's embeddedness in Philippine startup culture positions Launchgarage as a genuine pre-institutional pipeline rather than a conventional venture fund.