SEA of Startups

This week the two biggest stories in Southeast Asian tech were not a funding round or somebody’s ninth super app pivot. They were a government chip program in Penang and 3,600 kilometres of fibre being dropped on the seabed between India and Singapore. Two boring stories. Laid side by side, they are the most honest picture of this region you will get right now. Both are asking the same question, t...

Since 2017, Southeast Asia has produced exactly one tech IPO that made public investors real money. One. And this week, the Philippines is getting ready to bet its entire year on the next one. So this week I want to talk about who is buying, who is selling, and which side of that trade you actually want to be standing on. Four stories, and they braid into one. We open with the good news, because t...

Start with two numbers and a question. In May, startups in this region raised $472 million. More than double what they raised in April. Read only that line and you would think the drought had broken. Now the second number. That doubling was built almost entirely on two checks. Take those two out and May was thin, still down on the year before. So here is the question I want to sit inside. When you...

Start with a sliver of water between Iran and Oman. On a normal day, roughly a fifth of the world’s oil moves through the Strait of Hormuz. This year it stopped being normal. When the strait seized up, Brent jumped 10 to 13 percent in a single session into the low 80s and kept climbing to the highest level since 2022. The International Energy Agency, which does not deal in drama, called it the lar...

Singapore just released its report on venture funding for 2025, and almost every write-up reads the same way. Funding winter. Capital’s gone quiet. Hold the line, it’ll come back. I think that’s the wrong story. I’ve been sitting with these numbers for a few days, and the more I look at them, the more I’m convinced we’ve been telling ourselves the comfortable version. The comfortable version is th...

I hopped into a taxi in Bangkok last week and the driver, a man north of fifty, spent the ride telling me what he was building with AI. Not complaining about the economy. Not asking where I was from. Telling me about his project. I’ve been turning that over ever since, because it isn’t an isolated thing. For weeks now I’ve been scanning event listings in whatever city I land in, and the pattern is...

Two stories from Southeast Asia this week, and almost nobody connected them. The Philippines unveiled the marker for the Pax Silica industrial hub in New Clark City. Twenty plus companies expressed interest. A dozen are billion-dollar US firms. And on the same day, Manila publicly rejected the US request for diplomatic immunity and US legal jurisdiction over the zone. The hub will operate under Ph...

There’s a version of this week that looks like a good week for Southeast Asia’s startup ecosystem. The Q1 2026 funding report shows the highest quarterly capital raised since late 2022. Malaysia’s hottest IPO in sixteen years prices and lists next week. OpenAI and Anthropic both announce major new enterprise offerings backed by some of the biggest names in global private capital. Here’s the versio...

This week’s episode is a news episode. No guests. Just four stories that I think every founder, investor, and operator in Southeast Asia should be paying attention to right now. Here’s what we cover, and why each one matters. 1. China forced Meta to unwind a completed acquisition. Mid-honeymoon. In December, Meta acquired Manus — the AI agent startup that went viral in 2025 as China’s answer to de...

Episode Title: The New Space Age Is Actually Here | Artemis II, SpaceX IPO & The Rise of Orbital Infrastructure Episode Summary Right now, four humans are flying around the moon. Not in a simulation. Not in a film. For real. Kevin uses the launch of Artemis II on April 1, 2026 as the jumping-off point for a deep dive into the most consequential shift in space exploration since the Apollo era — and...

Most AI content gives you a framework. Tiwa York gives you a verdict. The founder who built Kaidee to 35 million users and guided it to a successful exit sat down with SEA of Startups and said what most operators are afraid to say out loud: your team is probably performing AI adoption, not doing it. And the longer you stay there, the harder it gets to move. Here’s what he actually said — the numbe...

In the ever-changing landscape of technology and business, the term “SaaSpocalypse” has emerged to describe the recent downturn in public software stocks. But what does this mean for the future of SaaS companies, especially in Southeast Asia? In this blog post, we’ll explore the nuances of the SaaSpocalypse, the potential for growth amidst disruption, and what established and emerging companies ca...

Keywords Meta, Manus, acquisition, Singapore, AI, geopolitics, startups, tech industry, business growth, investment Summary In this conversation, Kevin and Kim discuss Meta's recent acquisition of Manus, a Singapore-based startup, exploring its implications for founders in the region, the geopolitical landscape, and the evolving nature of AI in business. They analyze the rapid growth of Manus, the...

Summary In this conversation, Kevin and Kim discuss the recent merger of Elon Musk's companies, particularly focusing on the implications of combining AI and space technologies. They explore the potential of data centers in space, the evolving role of Tesla, and the regulatory challenges that come with these advancements. The discussion also touches on the future of sovereignty in space and the me...

Heyyyy guys, 🧠 TL;DR — What Actually Changed * SGX × NASDAQ dual listing is a real regulatory breakthrough — but U.S. liquidity remains unproven * The fintech “funding collapse” was actually capital consolidation into Singapore * Southeast Asia is shifting from emerging → maturing , with real scaffolding for a capital stack * Founders + investors have a 24-month window before this becomes table s...

THIS WEEK'S REALITY CHECK Google just published research that makes every data center in Southeast Asia look obsolete. Project Suncatcher: Space-based AI data centers hitting cost parity with terrestrial operations by 2035. Launch costs dropped from $10,000 to $1,500 per kilogram. SpaceX is targeting $200/kg. This isn't science fiction. It's a $100 billion economic shift happening right now—and So...

Episode Title: 400% Returns vs S&P: The 6 M&A Habits Turning Acquisitions Into Capability Machines THIS WEEK'S REALITY CHECK Companies that transform while they transact are delivering 400%+ returns vs the S&P 500 over the last decade. That's not incremental. That's a different category of value creation entirely. Deloitte just mapped how they do it: Six habits that separate transformational acqui...

THIS WEEK'S REALITY CHECK The 47th ASEAN Summit just wrapped in Kuala Lumpur. Trump was there. China's Premier showed up. Everyone talked about integration. Meanwhile, the smartest founders in Southeast Asia are betting on something completely different: That the chaos isn't a bug—it's the entire competitive moat. This episode unpacks why ASEAN's fragmentation might be its biggest strategic advant...

Your grandmother probably thinks AI is just fancy autocomplete. Your investors think it’s the next industrial revolution. Both might be right. And that’s exactly the problem. Welcome to the most expensive game of musical chairs in human history. In October 2025, OpenAI—the company that made you question whether your job is safe—signed roughly $1 trillion worth of deals . Not over decades. Not in t...

When Regulators Win: What Singapore's Robotaxi Rollout Reveals About the Future of Deep Tech While Silicon Valley's AV companies fought regulators and burned billions, Singapore just orchestrated the future of transportation. WeRide partnered with Grab. Pony.ai partnered with ComfortDelGro. Both launching in 2025. This isn't just about self-driving cars. It's about how deep tech scales when you wo...

Your battery just died. Not your phone—your entire business model. This week on Sea of Startups, we're diving into why most climate tech fails within months in Southeast Asia, how tropical conditions are a torture chamber for hardware, and why the smartest founders are turning brutal constraints into billion-dollar competitive advantages. Plus: Why Chinese AV companies are playing a completely dif...

This conversation explores the messy middle of entrepreneurship through  Ryan Ng’s unique journey  of building  YouDigital  while leading APAC expansion at $12B unicorn Deel. We dive into cultural barriers holding back Southeast Asian professionals, the myth of work-life balance, and what it really takes to build something meaningful while maintaining financial stability. ⏱️ Key Topics Discussed T...

"We went from the whole growth at all costs mentality to, can you actually make money? All within the span of about 18 months." Hey everyone, News flash- That's not some venture capitalist pontificating from a Palo Alto coffee shop. That's Kevin Brockland describing the most dramatic pendulum swing in tech history—happening right now, in Southeast Asia, while everyone else is still arguing about A...

The Trust Equation: Why Corporate VCs Aren't the Villain in Your Startup Story "One yes can open doors you didn't know existed. One no from the wrong person can kill dreams before they start." — Pavel Veselovsky, Corporate Venture Strategist Hey everyone, Let's address the elephant in every founder's pitch deck. You know that moment when a corporate VC shows interest in your startup? That split se...

🎙 EP 10: The $40 Billion AI Reality Check | MIT's Brutal Wake-Up Call on Enterprise AI's 95% Failure Rate 🛰 Everyone's chasing AI transformation. 95% are just burning money. This week, Kevin Brockland and Kim Yeoh tear apart MIT's Project NANDA report — the most brutal reality check the AI industry has seen. Despite $30-40 billion in enterprise AI spending, 95% of companies have exactly zero ROI t...