Our Mission
UNDISCOVERED SF (UNDSCVRD) is produced by Kultivate Labs, a San Francisco nonprofit building economic and cultural infrastructure in SOMA Pilipinas — the first Filipino Cultural District recognized by the City and County of San Francisco and the State of California.
Since our first night market in 2017, UNDSCVRD has helped pioneer San Francisco's now-thriving night market movement, and this year we're celebrating ten years of bringing Filipino American culture, artists, and small businesses into the heart of the neighborhood that shaped them.
We incubate retail concepts, restaurants, and neighborhood-serving businesses that are culturally rooted, financially resilient, and built to last — proof that a cultural district can grow without displacing the community it belongs to.
A Launching Pad for a Movement
UNDSCVRD's early success didn't just prove that Filipino American culture could draw thousands to SOMA — it gave Kultivate Labs the credibility and community trust to grow into a full ecosystem of programs. Today, that portfolio includes:
Balay Kreative — a Filipino American arts hub and creative home base in the district, including its Kreative Growth artist grants program
SEED Network — small business support and peer-learning for local entrepreneurs
Kapwa Gardens — a community gathering and green space, built by 350 community volunteers
Brownthought — a digital marketing workforce development program, founded in 2020 in honor of brand strategist Marco Jastillana
SF Live — a performing arts events directory building audiences for San Francisco's broader arts scene
KOHO — extending this model to Japantown, supporting Japanese and Japanese American artists
Eksplora AI Literacy Lab — an ethics-first AI literacy program preparing our community to navigate emerging technology on its own terms
Every one of these programs traces back to the same idea UNDSCVRD proved in 2017: that culture, when given the right infrastructure, can be an engine for economic opportunity.
Cultivate Business
UNDISCOVERED SF vendors get hands-on support to grow: workshops, mentorship, and a path into Kultivate Labs' SEED Network, our small business support and peer-learning program. Select vendors are also connected to professional services — branding, accounting, legal, crowdfunding — to prepare them for long-term growth in the cultural district.
We hire locally and encourage our vendors to do the same, through job fairs and partnerships with organizations across the district.
UNDISCOVERED SF is produced by Kultivate Labs, a nonprofit creative economy accelerator, and Make It Mariko, SF event producer. We believe entrepreneurship is one of many ways to build wealth in local communities. By creating new economic opportunity and closing the income inequality gap in San Francisco, we work to stem the displacement of our low- and middle-income residents.
UNDISCOVERED SF was originally made possible by a grant from the SOMA Stabilization Fund and the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development, along with $60,000 raised on Indiegogo from individual community backers. Today, our work continues with support from the Office of Economic and Workforce Development (OEWD), Yerba Buena Partnership, Grants for the Arts, the Community Challenge Grant, and the Downtown Development Corporation — and by the hopes and dreams of the Filipino community, and those who came before us.