Mike is a General Partner at Kickstart Ventures, the Philippines’ largest corporate venture capital firm. In this role, he has led significant investments, including a multimillion-dollar investment into UK-based Roslin Technologies, which develops animal cells for the cultivated meat sector, and Montreal-based SRTX which has developed the world’s only full-stack, closed loop, apparel manufacturing platform. He also sits at the board of Roslin as an observer, and Lydia AI, a Toronto-founded leader in health and actuarial sciences AI for real-time life and health underwriting, whose pre-Series B round Kickstart led.
Before joining Kickstart Ventures, Mike worked as a Director at Seawood Resources., a multi-billion peso investment firm, where he formulated investment strategies and oversaw the firm's portfolio companies, 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 a Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree from Harvard Law School, for which he was the LL.M. Class Representative during his time there. He also earned a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree in History from Duke University and a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Ateneo de Manila University..
