Hello Betamax, Founders get a lot of flak for drinking the AI Kool-Aid, but let's face it, some investors are drinking it too. From AI agents that crawl the web to look for which startups are investible, to those using the tech to populate internal databases, more VCs are using AI in one way or another to differentiate themselves. But not all of it is misguided.  In Singapore, Kadan Capital is just one example of an investor relying on a data-driven approach to capture signals and weed out the noise. The early-stage VC firm, which currently has a team of three people, focuses on fintech and AI investments. Felix Frenzel, one of the firm's founding partners, tells me that VCs have just as much pressure to move fast with AI, and many leading US funds are already ahead in the game. Such an approach makes sense in early-stage deals when there's little information about competitors or new technologies. Still, not all VCs talk openly about their internal workflows, so it's difficult to know just how pervasive such approaches already are in Southeast Asia. It's also not just the early-stage investors that are turning to AI. Singapore state-owned investor Temasek said it plans to roughly double its capital allocation in AI - across all parts of the value chain - by 2031, though it acknowledges that not all segments "are equally priced or equally investable." The lingering question is what does this all mean for founders in Southeast Asian countries outside of Singapore. Among global fund managers that I spoke with, especially those looking at AI and deeptech, a focus on Southeast Asia is just a euphemism for what they really mean is an emphasis on the city-state. Melissa Goh, senior editor |
