mike mate

Mike is currently the vice-president of investments at Kickstart Ventures, a corporate venture capital firm wholly owned by Globe Telecom, the Philippines’s leading telco. In this role, he has led significant investments, including a multimillion-dollar investment into Roslin Technologies, Kickstart's first investment in the food-tech and bio-tech sectors and first into the U.K.  

Mike was also the lead investor into SariSuki's $12.7-million Series A round, a Philippine agri-tech company. He sits on the boards of both Roslin Technologies and SariSuki as an observer. One of his focuses at Kickstart Ventures is driving investments in the food-tech and agri-tech industries.  

Before joining Kickstart Ventures, Mike worked as a director at Seawood Resources, a multibillion-peso investment firm, where he formulated investment strategies and oversaw the firm's portfolio companies in the food sector, including sitting as director on the board of Akaroa Salmon, a premium King Salmon producer in New Zealand.   

Prior to his roles in the investment industry, Mike gained valuable experience in finance and law. He served as the head of structured finance and debt products at BPI Capital, the investment banking group of Bank of the Philippine Islands. He also worked as a senior associate at Romulo Mabanta Buenaventura Sayoc & De Los Angeles, a prominent law firm in the Philippines. Additionally, Mike was a visiting international attorney in the M&A Group at Morrison Foerster, an international law firm with offices in the Americas, Europe, and Asia.   

Mike holds an LL.M. from Harvard Law School, for which he was the LL.M. Class Representative during his time there. He also earned a B.A. in History from Duke University and a J.D. from Ateneo de Manila University.