About

Unit 256 is an art tech enterprise that aims to make Philippine Arts accessible and aid institutions in art preservation. Our collection spans from masterpieces of National Artists to the young & thriving contemporary artists.

Vision

We envision ourselves as the largest NFT marketplace for Masterpieces and Contemporary Arts in Asia.

Mission

Our mission is to allow every Filipino to own a piece of Philippine heritage. We are founded on the grounds that Fine Arts is not accessible to everyone, when it should be. Humanities at its finest is what makes us humans after all. This, is what we passionately and efficiently work on: to make Fine Arts accessible to collectors. Not to mention the digitization of the world and everything we do, our technology can help art institutions in the preservation of its collections.

The Team

Brian Poe Llamanzares
Unit 256 Co-Founder

Founder & CEO of Time Master Watches
Founder of Oracle Media Group
Lead Investor in A-3 Group of Companies
Managing Director of A-Team 360 Reputation Management Services



Marvin Agustin
Unit 256 Co-Founder

Actor and Entrepreneur
Founder of SumoSam, Wolfgang's Steakhouse, John and Yoko, Tai Koo Hong Kong Roast, and Kondwi
Founder of Mr. Vin Munchies
Founder of Secret Kitchen
Owns the Ba-Yummy-Han Youtube Channel



Stephanie Anne P. Oller
Unit 256 Co-Founder

12 years experience in Marketing & Advertising
CEO of Market Connect Inc.
BA Philippine Arts, University of the Philippines
PG Data Science, National University of Singapore



Edison E. Tsai
Unit 256 Co-Founder

20+ years experience in Information Technology & Management
Executive Director of Seedin Technology Inc.
MSIT De La Salle University



Mario Jordan F. Fetalino III
Unit 256 Co-Founder

8+ years experience in Technology Businesses Management
Head of Alternative Finance - Innovation Garage, UBX Philippines Corporation
E-Founders Graduate, Alibaba Business School

Manolo Tambis Labor

Manolo Tambis Labor and his love affair with anything that is a digital disruption started way back decades ago when he was writing his undergraduate philosophy thesis on Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. While the rest of his batch mates were doing theirs on manual typewriters, he already was using desktop publishing applications with his thesis draft. He traversed from Ventura to Aldus to Adobe and from DOS to macOS to Windows, and would emerge a better person, so he claims.

He started his career in 1996 by joining the Philippine energy department where he contributed in the creatives aspect of promoting the deregulation of the downstream oil industry and the nationwide campaign on energy efficiency. 

In 2006, Manolo joined a small Dammam-based agency for a very specific project on hand: digitizing and digitally-archiving 800,000 stock photos of the Saudi Aramco company. To put it in context, Saudi Arabia was formed in 1932 and Saudi Aramco was established in 1933, so looking at those stock photos was like reading through the history of Saudi Arabia in black and white images.

In 2009, he was secretary general to a motorcycle manufacturing industry association that sought for, and was granted with, a Supreme Court TRO against the implementation of an RFID policy on motorcycles.

In 2010, he joined a mining company where he managed the operations of a mobile information resource center, produced eight (8) film documentaries, and introduced the use of digital “gondolas” or outdoor multimedia information kiosks in South Cotabato.

In 2016, he shifted to business development helping a start-up energy company acquire a multimillion investment pledge.



 Jaime Ponce de Leon

Jaime Ponce de Leon is the founder and director of Leon Art Gallery. Founded in 2010, the Leon Art Gallery is now recognized as one of the top purveyors of arts and artifacts, specializing in museum-quality Philippine art that includes works from venerated old masters, as well as contemporary painters and artists.
In 2016, they were recognized by Blouin Art to be among the 250 Best Auction Houses Worldwide. They also hold the record for the highest sale of a single lot sold at auction in the Philippines. 




Prim Paypon

Prim Paypon is currently the Executive Director of the Asian Institute of Management-Dado Banatao Incubator (AIM-DBI), the first business school-founded, located, and funded technology business incubator for startups in the Philippines. Since its opening in March 2018, AIM-DBI has incubated 50 startups under the innovative and comprehensive programs he crafted from scratch, with majority of them receiving important local and international awards, entering prestigious global accelerator programs, and getting multi-million dollar investments and multi-million peso grants. 

A Filipino Dreamagineer, Prim is also the founder of The Dream Project PH, a hybrid non-profit organization that helps build the nation by shaping and enabling collective Filipino dreams among underserved and underprivileged communities. To date, The Dream Project PH has already created more than 400 innovative technologies, sustainable programs, and community enterprises across 10 regions in the Philippines with only superior strategies and zero to inferior resources. 

A two-time TEDx speaker, his talk entitled, Imagineering a Filipino Dream, was selected by Spot.PH in 2015 as one of the 10 Most Inspiring TEDx Talks by Pinoys, and by Medium in 2016 as one of the 7 Best Pinoy TED Talks You Should Watch In Your Spare Time. In 2016, he was named as one of the Philippines’ 8 Movers and Shakers by Explore Philippines magazine. In 2017, the U.S. State Department selected him as one of the global fellows for the prestigious International Visitors Leadership Program (IVLP) on Volunteerism – Civic Action.

In between, he is also an art mentor who discovers young talents in the field of visual arts; an art curator and an art writer for contemporary art galleries in the country and abroad; a product design collaborator working with local creative and artisanal entrepreneurs; a published author for Brave New World, a landmark coffee table book about the Philippines’ local contemporary art during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic; and a startup founder behind Gaan, a curated plant concept store in White Plains, Quezon City.



John Januszczak

John Januszczak was appointed President & CEO of UBX after joining UnionBank as a Consultant in 2018. Prior to UnionBank, John served as the Chief Operating Officer of Manulife Philippines.

Over the years, John has successfully led operations and technology in various positions including head of global business process management at Manulife Financial and Vice President of Product Management at Meta Software Corporation.

John has a degree in Astrophysics from the University of Toronto.



Jojo Malolos

Jojo Malolos is a Venture Partner at Advantas Capital. Jojo is also the CEO of JG Digital Equity Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of the JG Summit Group with a US$50M investable fund for digital startups in Southeast Asia. He is concurrently the CEO of Data Analytics Ventures, Inc. which aims to unlock value from customer data across the JG Summit’s ecosystem to uncover new insights and drive behavior.

He was formerly CEO of Wing Limited Specialised Bank, one of Southeast Asia’s leading mobile banking service provider; a Managing Director of Cignifi, a Big Data Consumer Analytics firm for financial services using non-traditional credit scoring solutions; and a Managing Partner for AccessOneBillion (A1B), a SFO-based management consulting firm on mobile money. He was also former CEO of Smart Hub Inc. where he formed a JV with Mastercard called Mobile Payment Solutions. He also established M-Bank, a mobile micro-thrift bank in the Philippines in partnership with global microfinance organizations.

Jojo has a Master’s degree in Business Administration and a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Philippines.



Joseph James Joaquino Jr

 Joseph James Joaquino Jr. is currently a Managing Partner for AJA Law. In his law practice, he handles business law, with a focus on virtual platforms, e-commerce and financial technology. He also handles general corporate practice by helping clients structure their investments and establish and maintain corporate vehicles suitable to the unique elements of each commercial venture. He also helps clients adapt and reorganize, guiding them through changes in laws and regulations, or as their business plans and objectives evolve.

JR also focuses on business related litigation both in court and administrative agencies. He provides clients with litigation strategies grounded on thorough preparation, sensitivity to the client’s business goals and awareness of the practical concerns that affect the course of litigation.

JR graduated from the University of Asia and the Pacific with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration and Management. He then took his Juris Doctor degree in the Ateneo School of Law.

 

Governance

Unit 256
Unit 256 is a registered company with SEC No. 2022050052778-04 under the laws of the Republic of the Philippines.

Artifract.io
Artifract.io is a platform owned and operated by UBX Philippines Corporation in partnership with Unit 256 Ventures Inc., both of which are corporations duly organized and existing under Philippine laws. The Artifract.io platform is operating under VASP License to Operate in accordance with BSP Circular 1108, series of 2021, or the Guidelines for Virtual Asset Service Providers.

 Our official Service Level Agreement is available upon request.

Our official Service Level Agreement is available upon request.