Manila still dominates the Philippine startup conversation, but three years ago, a small nonprofit in Davao City started running a very different play: build serious, fundable, globally minded startups from Mindanao and prove they don’t need to uproot to be taken seriously. That experiment is called Upgrade Innolab Inc., and at its third anniversary, it now looks less like a side project and more like core infrastructure for the southern innovation economy.
In three years, Upgrade Innolab has incubated 60 startups and MSMEs, facilitated more than ₱60 million in funding, and supported over 3,500 job opportunities across its portfolio and partner ventures. For an incubator outside the capital, those numbers matter. They represent founders who chose to build from Davao, General Santos, Cagayan de Oro, and other Mindanao cities rather than orbiting the usual Manila-based networks, and still managed to convert ideas into pilots, customers, and payrolls.
The recognition has followed. The Department of Science and Technology – Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology Research and Development (DOST–PCIEERD) named Upgrade Innolab a “Home for Global Startups,” effectively placing it on the national map as a platform for founders who want to build locally and scale regionally. Within Region XI, the incubator has become a fixture. It is a three-time Outstanding Incubator awardee and has been cited by the Department of Trade and Industry Region XI as Impact Catalyst of the Year. Those titles don’t build companies by themselves, but they are a strong signal that the pipeline emerging from Mindanao is real and repeatable.
What makes Upgrade interesting is the texture of its portfolio. It is not a pure SaaS farm. The organization works with tech ventures, agriculture and food startups, education and creative enterprises, climate and sustainability plays, and MSMEs learning to digitize and formalize operations. Many of these teams come in with messy realities, partial compliance, informal staffing, uneven books, and a product that is more prototype than platform. The incubator’s value proposition is to turn that chaos into something funders and partners can understand with structured models, cleaner finances, clearer growth logic, and a path to capital that isn’t limited to one-off grants.
At the center of this effort is a relatively small team that spends most of its time in the background, reviewing decks, fixing numbers, and making quiet introductions. Leading that team is Richard R. Day, President of Upgrade Innolab. Inside the ecosystem, he has been recognized as a Rainmaker and Visionary Entrepreneur, but he is usually the first to point out that these recognitions reflect the work of many founders who keep showing up, partners who take early risks on Mindanao-based ventures, and colleagues who do the unglamorous work of follow-ups and paperwork. His role is less about being the face of the organization and more about connecting dots, helping resources move toward founders who would normally be invisible to Manila-centric deal flow, and keeping the long-term view that Mindanao should stand as a strategic node in the country’s innovation map, not a footnote.
That perspective is embedded in how Upgrade operates. The incubator is deliberately deal-oriented. Programs are not judged by graduation photos but by what happens afterward. Pilots inked with local governments or corporates, grants and investments actually disbursed, recurring revenue, and the ability of a startup to hire and retain people. When you look at its three-year numbers—60 ventures incubated, ₱60 million in funding facilitated, 3,500 job opportunities supported, you are really looking at a track record of turning early-stage risk into tangible economic outcomes for the region.
If the first three years were about proving that a Mindanao-based incubator can generate a credible pipeline, the fourth year is about raising the stakes. Upgrade Innolab is set to launch a circular economy acceleration program with an integrated funding facility for sustainability-focused startups in Mindanao, funded by the European Union–Philippines Green Economy Partnership. It is a targeted bet on the intersection of climate, circularity, and regional innovation.
The partnership context is significant. Funded by a €60 million grant from the European Union in the Philippines, the EU-PH Green Economy Partnership is a priority programme under the EU’s Global Gateway initiative and is led by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). It aims to link European and Filipino partners from the private sector and local governments to accelerate the country’s transition to a greener economy while sustaining economic growth. The circular economy accelerator of Upgrade Innolab sits within the EU-PH Green Economy Partnership: Green Business, Infrastructure, and Finance window implemented by Expertise France, co-led by DTI Philippines, and co-implemented with GGGI Philippines. The Green Up to Scale Up Grant, under which Upgrade’s program is anchored, is also implemented in partnership with DOST Philippines.
For Mindanao-based founders, this arrangement does three important things at once. First, it creates a dedicated track for circular and sustainability ventures, including waste-to-value, regenerative agriculture, low-carbon solutions, circular manufacturing, and adjacent models inside an incubator that already understands the region’s economic and social realities. Second, it pairs that track with a funding facility, so teams that make it through don’t just graduate with a certificate and a nice pitch deck, they gain actual access to seed and pilot capital tied to clear milestones. Third, it connects Mindanao-born solutions directly to a larger European-backed green transition agenda, giving startups exposure to international standards, networks, and potential customers without forcing them to leave their base of operations.
That matters in a country where climate and circular economy conversations often stay in policy documents and conferences. By embedding a funding facility into a regional accelerator, and tying it to a €60 million EU-backed programme led by DENR and co-driven by agencies like DTI, DOST, and GGGI, Upgrade Innolab is effectively wiring Mindanao’s sustainability startups into both national and international transition plans. It is no longer just helping ventures survive; it is positioning them as implementers in a larger green economy story.
Zoomed out, Upgrade’s third anniversary reads less like a feel-good regional milestone and more like a working template for how non-capital regions can build serious startup infrastructure. Treat incubation as a long-term backbone, not a series of one-off events. Measure success in pilots, funding flows, and jobs, not just in headcounts at bootcamps. And plug local founders into global initiatives—like the EU-PH Green Economy Partnership—without erasing their regional identity or forcing them to move to the capital.
Three years in, Upgrade Innolab has moved beyond the question of whether an incubator rooted in Davao can matter. The data suggests it already does. Dozens of ventures, tens of millions in funding, thousands of jobs, and a growing stack of national and regional recognition. With a circular economy accelerator and funding facility about to come in partnership with EU-PH GEP, Expertise France, DTI, GGGI, DOST, and DENR, the focus inside Upgrade remains the same as it was on day one. Keep the spotlight on the founders, do the quiet work behind the scenes, and let the results speak for Mindanao’s place in the country’s innovation story.
