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Please meet FilKor Capital, a US-based venture capital firm with a mission to empower resilient Asian Americans to build enduring companies.
They'll be in town for a week-long immersion in the #startupPH community and we’re happy to host them at Raid The Fridge!
Come join us: our guest speakers Maria Odiamar Racho, Diane Yoo, and Lakhi Siap would like to have a dialogue with you so they know what the startups are thinking and see where they can be of most help.
Also, they will share what they do at FilKor Capital so you can explore potential areas of collaboration. They are also looking for partners, i.e. accelerators, incubators, venture builders, investors, corporates, as well as other active enablers of the startup community.
See you!
About FilKor Capital
Founded in 2021, FilKor Capital is a venture capital firm with a mission to empower resilient Asian Americans to build enduring companies, with an initial focus on women.
About Our Speakers
Maria Odiamar Racho | Founding Managing Partner
Maria is a purpose-driven leader with the ability to balance aspiring vision with pragmatic execution. Her background is C-Suite advisor with expertise in strategy, human and organizational dynamics (executive, team, networks), culture, and business transformation.
Maria has launched and mobilized 12+ Asian American networks, founded a Fortune 70 incubator with a 1100+ person ecosystem, accelerated 150 startups, and was a 14-year C-suite advisor at a $44B corporation. Maria completed an Executive Master of Science in Organization Development at Pepperdine University where she returned as adjunct faculty. She’s a published researcher on Asian American leadership and currently serves on the board of Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Chicago. In 2020, her leadership with an Asian American Small Business COVID19 Relief Task Force helped catalyze the opening of an Illinois Small Business Development Center for the AAPI community of the Midwest. In January 2023, Maria was appointed to the Women’s Business Ownership Council by J.B. Pritzker, Governor of the State of Illinois in the USA.
Maria migrated from the Philippines to the US at the age of two. She’s married to her childhood sweetheart, has two sons, and has held a deep love for her birth land, regularly navigating the dual identities of being Filipino and American.
Diane Yoo | Founding Managing Partner
Diane has expertise in leading venture financing, portfolio management, and IPO experience. She has executed numerous high-profile business transactions, strategic alliances and technology partnerships specific to Venture Capital.
With experience in due diligence of high risk financing, she has over 42+ investments that have produced market-leading companies with $3.5 billion in valuation. Diane launched venture funds including FilKor Capital - the first pan Asian American women-focused fund, a fund partnership with the world's largest medical innovation center, and an institutional venture network. Diane’s also launched the first IPO program with the South Korean government agency where she secured firms with up to $5 billion in market valuation. She is also Co-Founder of Fenix Global, a senior investment managers network to advance Asian American women executives through capital connections. She also is a Limited Partner to Silicon Valley funds including the largest women’s fund and the nation’s first FemTech fund.
Diane is national speaker on VC, authored 75+ publications, trended #1 for Venture Capital on Crunchbase. Some of her publications include Bloomberg, Cheddar, NY Weekly, LA Weekly, Startup Nation, and Forbes Business Council. She is a Baylor University alum and received an MBA from Rice University
Lakhi Siap | Venture Partner
Lakhi is well known for his passion of community building and connecting the diaspora of next generation Filipino American leaders back to the Philippines. He is a Venture Partner at Filkor Capital and the founder of Chicago Asian Network, a full-service multicultural marketing agency.
He brings over 15 years of experience in multicultural marketing, business process outsourcing, and strategic community outreach. He has consulted with large nonprofits, Fortune 500 companies, and federal government organizations on strategic partnerships, outreach, and marketing to the Asian American community.
He was chosen by the former Philippine Ambassador to the US, Jose Cuisia Jr., to be part of the Filipino American Young Leaders Program (FYLPRO) in 2015. After being part of the program, Lakhi took on the role as a board member and Immersion Program Director of FYLPRO and spent most of his time coordinating yearly trade missions and immersion programs, bringing high performing Filipino Americans from various industries to create startups, legacy projects, social initiatives and “brain-gain” bridging the Filipino and Filipino American communities.
He regularly collaborates with the US State Department and the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs on US-Philippine leadership initiatives and fostering US-Philippine relations.
Raid The Fridge is the signature networking event of Kickstart Ventures, a Corporate Venture Capital firm based in the Philippines, for the #startupPH community -- first held in August 2012, Raid The Fridge is held every last Thursday of the month except December.
Kickstart Ventures is the wholly-owned corporate venture capital firm of Globe Telecom, the Philippines’ leading mobile operator. Kickstart invests in early- to early-growth stage tech startups glo...
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