8 Female-Led Startups to Know This Women's Month

In celebration of Women’s Month, The Business Manual shines the spotlight on female-led startups that are making waves in different industries across the country.

A recent study by Endeavor Insight and Endeavor Philippines, Mapping the Philippine Tech Sector: An Analysis of the Entrepreneurship Community, has boldly declared that female entrepreneurship in the country is increasing.

The study is supported by numbers to back its claim. In the tech sector, for example, one-third of the companies have at least one female founder. Between 2015 to 2019, companies with at least one female founder only accounted for 28%, but this has since grown to 34% between 2020 and 2024.

This Women’s Month, The Business Manual celebrates female founders not just in the tech sector but also across different industries by shining the spotlight on female-led startups in the Philippines.

Female-Led Startups in the Philippines

Here are eight female-led startups in the Philippines that deserve attention and recognition.

Backscoop (Amanda Cua)

Named one of last year’s Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia, Amanda Cua has made it her mission to simplify technology and business news, making it both engaging and easy to understand, while still keeping it informative, through her platform, Backscoop.

At just 19 years old, straight out of high school, Amanda Cua launched Backscoop, a newsletter that delivers the latest tech and business news from Southeast Asia. Completely free for subscribers, Backscoop is complemented by One More Scoop, a podcast hosted by Cua that features in-depth interviews with prominent figures in the tech and business worlds.

Beppo (Jenny Galang)

Bookkeeping and tax compliance are among the most challenging tasks for entrepreneurs, often made more difficult by complex government processes. To ease the burden on small businesses and self-employed individuals, Jenny Galang co-founded Beppo.

Offering services that aim to simplify bookkeeping and tax compliance for MSMEs and self-employed individuals, Beppo has served more than 18,600 organizations and filed PHP 6.7 billion in tax returns.

CloudEats (Kimberly Yao)

Being a pioneer in any industry is a monumental challenge, but it was one that Kimberly Yao embraced when she co-founded CloudEats in 2019. CloudEats has been recognized as a pioneer in the cloud kitchen and restaurant industry, a concept that saw significant growth during the COVID-19 pandemic.

An online-only food and beverage company, CloudEats has since developed and launched some of the country’s more successful online-optimized brands, including Burger Beast, Lucky 88 Bowls, Pia Wurtzbach’s Pia Bowls, and Rhian Ramos’ Healthy Appetite.

Hive Health (Camille Ang and Jiawen Tang)

With the goal of making quality healthcare more accessible to Filipinos, Camille Ang and Jiawen Tang co-founded Hive Health. Hive Health serves as a digital platform for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the country, offering customized HMO plans tailored to their needs.

Its acquisition of Health Plans Philippines, Inc. (HPPI) in 2023 broadened Hive Health’s network, which now includes more than 1,700 hospitals, clinics, and dental clinics, as well as over 20,000 doctors nationwide.

Lhoopa (Sabrina Tan)

Homeownership has long been a challenge in the Philippines, and property technology startup Lhoopa, co-founded by Sabrina Tan, is working to solve this issue. With a mission to make housing more accessible to Filipinos, Lhoopa aims to tackle the affordable housing backlog and provide solutions for those in need of homes.

Through its user-friendly app, Lhoopa offers a platform where users can find homes priced between PHP 500,000 and PHP 2 million, with minimal to no downpayment required. To date, Lhoopa has successfully sold over 3,700 properties, supported by a network of more than 4,000 brokers, agents, contractors, and notaries across the country.

NoneAway (Crystal Gonzalez)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been increasingly integrated in different industries these days, and real estate is no exception. One of the startups in the country that has leveraged AI in real estate is NoneAway.

With CEO and co-founder Crystal Gonzalez at the helm, NoneAway offers an AI-powered app that seeks to make property buying, selling, and renting scam-free by ensuring that users will have a safer and more straightforward experience.

To date, NoneAway has listings worth over PHP 21 billion and more than 170 registered professionals. The platform also offers advanced, secure features such as AI-powered verification, anti-screenshot protection, and a comprehensive search function, among others.

Plastic Credit Exchange (Nanette Medved-Po)

Nanette Medved-Po founded Plastic Credit Exchange (PCX) in 2019, initially as a non-profit organization that supports environmental protection and helps tackle the legacy plastic waste crisis in the Philippines.

PCX has harnessed technology to achieve its goals by launching PCX Markets, a marketplace focused on audited, traceable plastic waste recovery and responsible processing, not only in the Philippines but globally. To date, PCX’s efforts have helped clean up and divert over 122 million kilograms of plastic waste.

SeeYouDoc (Vanessa del Castillo)

Telemedicine has become an efficient alternative to accessing healthcare services in the country, particularly during the pandemic. Making the switch to digital, however, can be easier said than done for our healthcare practitioners.

To address this gap in the industry, Vanessa del Castillo co-founded SeeYouDoc, a platform that specializes in providing telemedicine solutions for healthcare providers. Additionally, SeeYouDoc acts as a marketplace for patients seeking healthcare services.

Since its launch, SeeYouDoc has created more than 700 virtual facilities in the country. The platform is used by over 1,300 physicians and 32,400 registered patients.

Encouraging Future Generations of Female Founders

While the number of female-led companies has grown significantly in recent years, there is still work to be done to encourage more women to take the leap and lead their own startups.

One way to achieve this is by placing a greater focus on identifying female entrepreneurs and providing them with the necessary support to help launch, scale, and grow their businesses.

Another way to encourage women entrepreneurs is by eliminating the barriers, such as gender bias and gender inequality, that hinder their success and growth. As the Endeavor study points out, there is a need to better understand the specialized needs of female entrepreneurs. Investors, support organizations, and even the government can play a key role in connecting women entrepreneurs with the right networks and addressing systemic biases.