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Welcome to Tech in Asia's free Saturday VC newsletter! Register to get full access to our subscribers-only premium content and other insightful analysis on the big and messy topics of Asia's tech and startup community. Ensure our articles appear in your Google searches: 
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Hello Betamax, Infrastructure is absolutely critical to ensuring that everything works as it should. It's especially important for those of us operating in the tech space. The coolest apps and the most amazing software mean nothing if the user we have in mind struggles even to get access to the internet - or running water, for that matter. This week's funding data emphasizes this. The largest deal - at a whopping US$1.59 billion, basically half the total disclosed funding raised this week - is a debt round closed by an Australian data center operator. The reality is, we need physical infrastructure to sustain the global AI boom, and players who can successfully build those foundations are certainly poised for success. You can find all other important investment deals from the last few days in our weekly funding news wrap-up.  Let's dive into the biggest deals and M&As that have recently taken place. -- Stefanie |
THE BIGGEST DEALS BY MARKET🇦🇺 NextDC redefines Data Center as a Service in Australia through advanced infrastructure solutions. It has raised US$1.59 billion in debt funding from undisclosed investors. 🇨🇳 Aisphere is a China-based developer of AGI video technology. It has bagged US$441 million in series C funding from Alibaba Group, CloudAlpha, Eastern Bell Capital, Grand Mount Capital, Ivy Capital, Lollapalooza Capital, Mirae Asset Capital, and iGlobe Partners. 🇮🇳 Headquartered in India, Udaan is a B2B ecommerce platform designed to solve core trade problems for small, medium, and large businesses. It has secured US$160 million in a bridge round from undisclosed investors. 🇸🇬 Singapore-based PixVerse offers proprietary video-generation models and a full-stack media platform. It has raised US$139 million in a series C extension from Alibaba, BlueFocus Communication Group, CloudAlpha, Eastern Bell Capital, Grand Mount Capital, Ivy Capital, Lollapalooza Capital, Mirae Asset Capital, and iGlobe Partners. 🇰🇷 Holiday Robotics aims to commercialize general-purpose robots. Based in South Korea, it has raised US$100 million in series A funding from Atinum Investment, BonAngels, Dasung Ventures, Goodwater Capital, IMM Investment, Industrial Bank of Korea, InterVest, KB Investment, KDB Bank, Premier Partners, SJ Investment Partners, SL Investment, Springcamp, Stonebridge Capital, and Ulmus Investment. Here's the complete list of this week's funding chart: 83 deals worth over US$2.7 billion. |
M&AS🇸🇬 Lumitics, previously known as Good For Food, offers a food waste management solution that lets businesses track food waste seamlessly. It has been acquired by AI-powered food waste prevention system Winnow Solutions for an undisclosed sum. 🇮🇳 Aflairza, which offers professional-grade makeup products, has been acquired by beauty and personal care brand Recode Studios. The financial details of the deal were not disclosed. |
STARTUP IN THE SPOTLIGHTTurning building inspections from weeks to days with AI  Building safety inspections typically involve visual assessments using scaffolding and paper checklists, which is dangerous and yields fragmented data. JRE Ventures-backed H3 Zoom is trying to fix that using AI and drones.
- The gap: Messy data from manual inspections means facility managers lack reliable methods to pinpoint damage and prioritize maintenance budgets.
- The fix: H3 Zoom uses drones, 360-degree cameras, and autonomous mobile robots to inspect buildings, then AI models to identify issues and create inspection reports.
- The pitch: The startup is betting that it can stand out in a US$175 billion global market as an end-to-end intelligence platform rather than a general construction progress tracker.
This article is part of our Startup Spotlight series. To get your startup or portco covered, fill out this survey. |
BEHIND THE GLASSWALL Fundraising often involves reaching out to several contacts, many of whom founders might not have dealt with before. To provide some transparency to this process, we created Glasswall, a platform for founders to give feedback and recommendations on investors. Check out the full list here.
- ✅︎ "Investor-friendly, smart, and they do the right amount of due diligence without the nonsense. Super hardworking, and our success in raising each of our rounds was off the back of their advice, involvement, and mentoring." - Read more.
- ❌"They add little to no value to board discussions, do not read board materials before coming to board meetings, and add mostly noise to discussions, as they are not in tune with the realities the company is facing. Makes a lot of promises but frequently falls short of delivering on them." - Read more
- ✅︎ "Very straightforward to talk to; clearly shares what they like and what worries them about the business model; open about where they can help and where they won't be able to." - Read more
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UNLOCK THE LIGHTNING PITCH ADVANTAGEPartner with Tech in Asia Conference 2026  For enterprise leaders, investors, and tech decision-makers across Southeast Asia, discovering relevant solutions often comes down to timing, clarity, and access. The Lightning Pitch segment at Tech in Asia Conference 2026 creates a fast-moving environment where practical innovations can be grasped within minutes, not lost in endless slides or scattered chatter. Hosted on pop-up stages in high-traffic zones, each session gives founders 15 minutes to present real solutions, emerging use cases, and new technologies as attendees move through the conference floor. Collaborating with us for Lightning Pitch places your brand in one of the conference's most visible discovery formats. It creates a direct association with practical innovation, founder-led execution, and the solutions shaping the next phase of Asia's tech landscape. Partner with Tech in Asia Conference 2026 to lead the conversations shaping Asia's AI strategy. |
EXCLUSIVE LISTICLESLists of most active investors in the region China | India | Indonesia | Japan | Singapore | Southeast Asia List of top-funded startups in Asia China | India | Indonesia | Israel | Japan | Hong Kong | Singapore | South Korea | Vietnam |
THOUGHTFUL READS1️⃣ Welcome to the megafund era VC megafunds - funds with over US$1 billion in assets - are dominating headlines and investments, accounting for 72% of all deal value in the first six months of 2026, according to PitchBook. The size of these funds means they're becoming increasingly inaccessible, even to some large family offices and ultra-wealthy investors. This article from CNBC dives deeper. 2️⃣ The cost of regulations Malaysia's digital regulations are pushing up startup costs and affecting venture capital budgets, per an Oxford Economics study. In a modeled scenario, these regulations could lead to venture capital falling by 26% between 2026 and 2035 - roughly US$194 million per year. Learn more from this Tech Wire Asia article. 3️⃣ Two paths diverge in a woods On one hand, companies like PayPal and Fidelity Investments have wound down their corporate venture capital (CVC) arms. On the other, names like Meta, Disney, and Google continue to invest big bucks in growing startups, especially those in the AI space. It seems like CVCs are going down two different paths, and startups would do well to plan for a few possible scenarios, as discussed in this piece from Crunchbase News. 4️⃣ A fundamental shift If we really want to achieve gender equality in venture capital, we need to make systematic changes instead of doing the same thing over and over, writes Rachel Yang, partner at VC firm Giant Leap. In this piece for SmartCompany, she shares her thoughts on the existing measures taken to drive equality, explores where they still fall short, and offers some suggestions on how the industry can rewrite the script at a fundamental level, instead of just treating symptoms. 5️⃣ An AI company that does design In this episode of the Rapid Response podcast, Cameron Adams, co-founder and chief product officer at Canva, shares his perspectives on the company's pivot from design to AI, how firms can get real impact from the tech, and what the so-called "SaaSpocalypse" is. Check it out here. Today's edition was written by Stefanie Yeo. It's edited by Mina Deocareza. |
EVENTS HAPPENINGYou can also check out our curated list of trending tech events and Tech in Asia's signature events.
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Gain practical insights from leaders scaling AI across Asia Gain practical insights from leaders scaling AI across Asia This main stage session at Tech in Asia Conference 2026 goes behind the scenes of agentic AI deployments across 570 touchpoints and AI-driven sales tools running in global markets. You'll learn the tactical playbooks, the art of making tough decisions, and the unexpected lessons these leaders encountered while bridging the gap between experimentation and measurable ROI. Find out more. |
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Unlock the Lightning Pitch advantage At Tech in Asia Conference 2026, Lightning Pitch places your brand on high-traffic pop-up stages where founders and builders present real solutions in 15 minutes, creating fast-moving visibility around practical technologies, emerging use cases, and the decision-makers exploring what comes next. Partner with Tech in Asia Conference 2026 to be where real solutions get seen, grasped, and carried into meaningful conversations. |
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We're thrilled to announce that Ng Tian Beng, president and group CEO of Certis, is joining us at the Tech in Asia Conference 2026 to talk about the tactical reality of leading a 25,000-person workforce into the AI era. Join us in Singapore to learn from a leader who has spent decades shaping the tech landscape across Asia Pacific.. |
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