The short answer: Five hubbers — Liana Mercado, Joseph Tan, Aileen Reyes, Marco Villanueva, and Patricia Ong — closed 2025 with the highest-impact milestones in the Impact Hub Manila community. Their ventures span agritech, climate adaptation, mental health, blue carbon, and inclusive finance — and each one is entering 2026 with a clear scale plan.
2025 was the year impact entrepreneurship in the Philippines stopped being a niche conversation. Filipino founders raised ₱2.1 billion in impact-aligned capital across the year, and Impact Hub Manila hubbers represented roughly 14% of that total. We picked five whose work moved the needle — for their sectors, for their communities, and for the broader question of what a Filipino-built impact economy looks like.
1. Liana Mercado — Co-founder, Mayani 2.0
The 2025 story. Liana led Mayani 2.0's pivot from a farmer-aggregator app to a full agritech operating system used by 11,400 smallholder farmers across Luzon. The platform now handles input procurement, harvest scheduling, and direct buyer payouts, replacing four legacy middlemen for the average farmer.
The 2026 plan. Mayani 2.0 graduated from INCUBATE 2026 in March and is opening its first Visayas operations in Iloilo this quarter. Liana's stated goal: 30,000 farmers by year-end and a regional pilot in Cebu.
"The most surprising thing about 2025 wasn't the growth. It was watching farmers who had never used a smartphone become daily power users — because the product finally respected their workflow." — Liana Mercado
2. Joseph Tan — Founder, BantayBaha AI
The 2025 story. Joseph's flood-prediction startup ran early-warning pilots in 23 LGUs across Luzon during the 2025 typhoon season. BantayBaha AI's hyperlocal flood models — fed by river-gauge sensors and rainfall radar — gave residents an average of 4 hours and 12 minutes of additional warning over PAGASA's standard alerts during Tropical Storm Ulysses 2.0.
The 2026 plan. BantayBaha won at AI for Good 2026 in April and is now in talks with the DICT for a national integration pilot. The team is hiring 14 engineers in Manila and Cagayan de Oro.
"We don't want to be the alert that arrives. We want to be the alert that arrives early enough that nobody dies." — Joseph Tan
3. Aileen Reyes — Founder, Kumusta
The 2025 story. Aileen's Filipino-language mental-health platform crossed 180,000 active users in 2025, with peer-counsellor sessions delivered in Tagalog, Cebuano, and Hiligaynon. Kumusta partnered with the Department of Education to pilot screening tools in 87 senior high schools.
The 2026 plan. A clinical-trial-grade outcome study (in partnership with PGH) is reading out in Q3 2026. Aileen is also leading Kumusta's expansion into workplace mental-health programs, with three Philippine Top-100 employers signed.
"Mental health in Filipino isn't a translation problem. It's a cultural-context problem. The product is finally beginning to feel like it was made here." — Aileen Reyes
4. Marco Villanueva — Founder, BukidCarbon
The 2025 story. Marco built BukidCarbon into the country's first audited mangrove-carbon registry. By December 2025 the platform had verified 2,840 hectares of mangrove restoration across Palawan, Samar, and Surigao del Sur — generating ₱96M in coastal-community payouts.
The 2026 plan. Following COP30 in Belém, BukidCarbon is registering its first batch of credits under Article 6.4 — making it among the earliest Filipino issuers in the new global mechanism. Target: 8,000 hectares by end of 2026.
"Carbon markets failed for 20 years because the trees were a story instead of a measurement. We measure. That's the whole pitch." — Marco Villanueva
5. Patricia Ong — Co-founder, SuKredit
The 2025 story. Patricia's group-credit platform served 74,000 women micro-entrepreneurs in 2025, with a 96.4% repayment rate and an average loan of ₱18,500. SuKredit's underwriting model uses peer-trust signals — not credit bureau data — and that turned out to be the unlock.
The 2026 plan. SuKredit graduated from INCUBATE 2026 with a BSP sandbox slot and is launching insurance bundling in Q2. Patricia is also one of the youngest Filipinos invited to the World Economic Forum's 2026 Young Global Leaders cohort.
"Banks asked the wrong question for decades. They asked, 'Can we trust her?' We asked, 'Who already trusts her?' Her neighbours. Her market. Her sari-sari supplier. That's the data." — Patricia Ong
Why these five
The selection criteria were deliberately tight. Each founder had to be an active Impact Hub Manila member during 2025, ship a verifiable 2025 milestone (not a 2024 carryover), and have a publicly stated 2026 plan that scales — not just continues — what shipped in 2025.
What unites them is less the sector than the discipline. None of these ventures pitch themselves as "the Filipino version of X." Each one names a specifically Filipino problem — mangrove tenure ambiguity, peer-trust microfinance, Tagalog mental-health vocabulary, hyperlocal flood prediction in archipelagic terrain, smallholder-farmer middleman cost — and builds for it natively.
What this means for 2026
If 2025 proved Filipino impact founders can ship, 2026 is when the question shifts to whether they can scale without losing the cultural specificity that made them work. Each of the five hubbers profiled here is now testing that question in real time — across LGUs, across regional borders, and (for BukidCarbon) across global compliance markets.
Impact Hub Manila will track all five through 2026 in our Hubber Quarterly briefings. Subscribe to the newsletter at the bottom of this page to follow along.
Frequently asked questions
How does Impact Hub Manila select hubbers for the annual spotlight?
The editorial team reviews 2025 milestones across all active hubbers, scored on three axes: verifiable impact, originality of approach, and stated 2026 scale plan. Final selection is made by a five-person editorial panel including external impact-investing advisors.
Can I get introduced to one of these founders?
Yes. Active Impact Hub Manila members can request a warm intro through the member portal. Non-members can email [email protected] with a one-paragraph context.
Are any of these founders raising in 2026?
BukidCarbon and SuKredit have publicly disclosed Series A rounds opening in H1 2026. Mayani 2.0 closed its Series A in late 2025. BantayBaha AI is bridging through grants and government contracts. Kumusta is operating at break-even and is not currently raising.