6 Filipino American Tech Founders TO WATCH
In this day and age, technology plays a major role in how we live our daily lives. These 6 game changers are paving the way in the digital world to help make life, as we know it, smoother, easier, and more entertaining! From fashion to finances to entertainment and beyond, there is no stopping these tech leaders and the empires they have built through their respective tech companies.
1. Trisha Bantigue
Trisha Bantigue is the CEO and Co-Founder of Queenly, which she founded alongside Kathy Zhou. In 2019, the two created the app to become a formalwear marketplace and search engine all in one. The platform is all about helping women explore a wide variety of dresses and ultimately find one that fits them just as they like it.
Despite the glitz and the glamor that her job entails, Trisha’s upbringing was about as unconventional as it gets. She was born in the Philippines, where she lived until she moved to Las Vegas, Nevada at the age of 10. At 17 years old, she made the courageous decision to live independently. After graduating from UC Berkeley with a major in Political Science, she went on to work for a number of major tech companies, such as Uber, Facebook and Google. In addition to this, she has an extensive amount of experience competing in pageantry and working as a fashion model.
Present day, Trisha and the Queenly team are dedicated to aid everyone, regardless of shape, height, size, or skin color, find a dress that is 100% for them. The work that she puts into the business has garnered major success since its launch a few years back. In an interview from einnews.com, Queenly was stated to have over 125,000 users, with about 60,000 dresses listed on their platform. They were able to raise $7.1 million in funding with a large number of investors at their side.
The app is available online through their website queenly.com and as an app on iPhone and Android. Follow Trisha on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trisherrr/.
2. Kevin Gabayan
Kevin Gabayan is the CEO and Co-Founder of fintech company, Plentina, which he founded alongside Earl Valencia. He grew up as a son of Filipino immigrants in California. In college, he earned a degree at UCLA, went to Stanford to get his Masters and received his PhD in electrical engineering. Throughout his professional career, he worked as a computer vision researcher at NASA Ames and led data science at Bump. In addition to this, he was an Android machine learning engineer and founded a team in Google’s internal incubator that worked on emerging market credit.
Kevin and co-founder, Earl, met in graduate school, connecting over a dinner group for Filipinos at Stanford. The duo has since gone on to do great things through Plentina, a platform that empowers consumers to build credit while enjoying flexible payment options. The company was officially launched in October of 2020 in the Philippines. Since their start, they have skyrocketed with over 400,000 downloads. Their growing list of partners include 7-Eleven, McDonalds, Philippine Airlines, Zalora and many more.
From a simple idea to raising initial seed funding of $2.2 million, there is no stopping this company that is clearly on the rise.
For more information on Plentina, visit their website: https://www.plentina.com/.
3. Aimeelene Gaspar
Aimeelene is a CEO and Co-Founder of LionX, a consumer privacy technology platform for businesses to meet the complex consumer privacy regulations in the United States.
Her parents immigrated to the United States from the Philippines. Because of this big move, Aimeelene was able to take huge leaps and ultimately make a massive mark on America. She ended her education with a Master of Science in Design, Business and Technology from the University of Southern California and received a BS in Finance from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Aimeelene now leads a strong team of technology and product experts who are dedicated to helping companies create the best privacy experience for their customers. In addition to this, she empowers other founders as an advisory board member of the Village Capital in their FinTech Forward program.
For more information on LionX, visit their website www.mylionx.com.
4. Jonathan Javier
Jonathan Javier is the CEO and Founder of Wonsulting. He graduated college with a major in Business Administration from the University of California, Riverside. As with any college student after graduation, Jonathan faced a huge challenge, landing a job that he enjoyed doing. For him, his dream job lied within the field of tech. However, because of his background he found difficulty landing anything. Despite not graduating from a big school, he kept his dreams alive by taking an unconventional approach - making use of the power of social media.
After a year or so, his strategy proved effective in landing him his first tech job at Snapchat. He went on to work for major tech companies like Google and Cisco. After facing so much rejection and redirection, Jonathan had finally achieved his dream of working in tech. To make it even more special, he did all of this without ever applying.
Jonathan found so much success in his strategy that he wanted to share his method to help others accomplish their goals too. In 2019, he partnered up with Jerry Lee to start Wonsulting. Their mission is to turn underdogs into winners, providing those from non-target schools and non-traditional backgrounds with the help they need to land their dream jobs. Since its start, they have accumulated over 1.5 million community members.
Head on over to www.wonsulting.com to learn more about all of the great things they are doing! Follow Jonathan on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/jonathanwordsofwisdom/.
5. Sheila Lirio Marcelo
Sheila Lirio Marcelo, CEO & Founder Of Proof of Learn and Founder of Care.com, is a force to be reckoned with in the world of tech. She was born in the Philippines to parents who were both entrepreneurs. In 1977, her family made the big move to Houston in the United States. As she entered college, with the pressure of her parents looming over her, she applied to Harvard Law School. However, she courageously deferred her acceptance and took a litigation consulting job. It was here that she realized her real calling was in business. In 1995, she pursued a joint JD/MBA degree and got accepted into Harvard Business School. Throughout her time at Harvard, she worked with companies like Monitor, Upromise, TheLadders.com, and Matrix Partners.
In 2006, she formed a team to help her start Care.com, and in May of the following year, they officially got the ball rolling. Care.com is a platform that aims to help bring families and caregivers together. It is now among the most sought after online care platforms, serving more than 28.4 million people in over 20 countries. In addition to this, Sheila is the Co-Founder & CEO of Proof of Learn, a Web3 education platform that aims to unlock accessible and high quality education across the globe through blockchain and a learn-to-earn protocol. The app is set to ensure that anyone can gain world-class online education and access to opportunities and employment through their career marketplace. With a seed round of $15 million, the company is set to launch very soon.
From lying to get her first job out of college at 22 years old to building tech platforms that greatly affected the world, it is truly remarkable how far she has come.
Stay up to date with Sheila's latest ventures at https://www.instagram.com/sheilaliriomarcelo/ and follow the latest and greatest of Proof of Learn at https://www.proofoflearn.io/.
6. Roland Ros
Roland Ros is the CEO and Co-Founder of Kumu, the largest social entertainment app in the Philippines, which he founded alongside Rexy Dorado in 2018.
Roland graduated with a BA in Asian American Studies from UC Santa Barbara and studied as an Executive Scholar at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. Throughout his professional career, he worked with Spark Revenue as their Vice President, MediaTrust as their VP Business Development, Tracking202 as a Partner & VP Business Development and GE Money Bank as a Business Development Associate.
Now, Roland and his team at Kumu have built the platform to be respected and loved internationally. It's now a safe space for users to be their authentic selves and engage with people across the globe, while taking part in earning opportunities through creating user-driven and partner content. From earning the title of #1 Grossing Social App in the Philippines to reaching great heights in countries like Kuwait, Norway, Hong Kong, Canada, and the UK, the sky's the limit for the Philippine based tech company.
Follow Roland at https://www.instagram.com/rollypollylovesyou/ and learn more about Kumu at https://kumu.ph/.
Written by Nico Belasco
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