The generative AI landscape has seen warp-speed growth in recent months.

Take ChatGPT, for example. The world-famous chatbot boasts 25 million daily visitors and currently holds the record for the fastest-growing consumer Internet app—reaching one million users in just five days.

Globally, popular platforms such as Duolingo, Khan Academy, and Stripe are also embracing the generative AI trend, introducing AI-powered features into their platforms.

But perhaps generative AI’s meteoric rise is most evident in the startup space. On Y Combinator’s Startup Directory, the prestigious startup accelerator known for backing successful ventures like Airbnb, Coinbase and Dropbox, the number of startups tagged as “Generative AI” in its Winter 2023 batch made up 22 per cent of the cohort, surpassing the combined number of startups with the same label over the past five years.

Across the globe, generative AI is now being used to power a diverse range of industries, from content marketing to deep tech engineering. At the time of writing, the number of generative AI startups under Y Combinator stands at 108 and counting.

The homegrown startups making waves in their respective verticals

Standing out in one of the fastest-moving tech spaces is no easy feat.

Against all odds, these three trailblazing homegrown startups have received the prestigious backing of Y Combinator and are continuing to lead the pack in their respective verticals.

Also Read: Use AI to clone yourself with Oleksandr Vysotskyi

We speak to the Founders to learn more about what they think of humanity’s future with generative AI.

Hypotenuse AI (YC20)

Hypotenuse AI was founded in 2020 by Singaporeans Joshua Wong, a former machine learning scientist at Amazon Alexa and Cambridge University alumni, and Low Lin-Hui, an early hire in Stripe’s APAC team and ex-founder of her own e-commerce brand.

What does Hypotenuse AI do?

Hypotenuse AI is an AI content marketing platform that manages and creates content for businesses, including blog articles, product descriptions, AI images and advertising copies. Hypotenuse’s AI is built using proprietary machine learning techniques designed especially for marketers and copywriters to write high-quality, high-conversion content that matches a brand’s tone and style.

How did Hypotenuse AI come about? What inspired you to start it?

Through a personal pain point.

During my time as a machine learning researcher at Amazon, I was helping a colleague to start an e-commerce website selling vegan soap bars. We realised that the most frustrating part of this process for us was getting the copy written for product descriptions and marketing.

Given my background, I started building out AI models to automate this process and realised that while it was a challenging problem, it was possible to solve. I went to speak to a dozen businesses and realised that it wasn’t only a problem for us but for many online companies out there.

So I left Amazon to solve this problem for all businesses out there.

Generative AI tools are becoming increasingly popular in recent months. What are your predictions over the next year?

Generative AI will become widespread in marketing teams globally. The hallucination problem (of AI making up facts) still won’t be solved, but it will be greatly reduced to the point that it beats human error rates in many areas. The cost of large language models will continue to fall. Multimodal models will rise—ones that work across video, audio, text and more. Advancements will keep pouring out of research, and the hype around AI will still continue to grow. It won’t slow down yet.

Smaller open-source AI models will gain popularity, but the biggest advancements will still come from large language models that are too gigantic for the average user to train. Many generative AI start-ups will die because they created fancy demos but never found product market fit. A handful more billion-dollar generative AI start-ups will be spawned.

Governments will begin to regulate the development of the most advanced AI models. Educational institutions will be in an existential debate, but good ones will embrace generative AI carefully and adapt parts of it to fit into their curriculum. PhDs in AI become less relevant, but engineering with these models become increasingly in demand. The face of things we took for granted as constant in our lives would change—including how web search is done, how we find the right words to explain concepts, and

Yuma.ai (YC W23)

Yuma.ai was founded in 2023 by Guillaume Luccisano, a French software engineer and serial entrepreneur living in Singapore and a seed investor in over 50 startups in the US and France. His first startup, Socialcam, was acquired by Autodesk in 2012.

What does Yuma do? 

Yuma is ChatGPT for customer support. We focus on helping Shopify merchants with their support burden. We are a one-click install app on top of their helpdesk software, such as Gorgias or Zendesk. Once installed, we start suggesting the best draft for answering support inquiries.

How did Yuma come about? What inspired you to start it?

Yuma got started by accident. This is my third YC startup after Socialcam (W12) and Triplebyte (S15). I started playing with LLMs in late 2022 and released Yuma as a prototype for fun in mid-December 2022 and was overwhelmed with demo requests. That’s when I knew I was onto something and had to turn this into a real company once again.

Generative AI tools are becoming increasingly popular in recent months. What are your predictions over the next year?

The pace of change is currently astonishing. Although we may not yet fully realise it, AI will have a profound impact on our day-to-day lives, potentially as significant as the introduction of the smartphone and the internet.

Many roles will need to adapt or change, and we will have to learn how to harness the power of AI. Education, for example, will never be the same. On a global scale, AI will become a major geopolitical focus and will be a key competitive advantage for nations that own the best technology.

Also Read: Regional expansion, careful approach to fundraising remain key for SEA fintech startups to grow

Defog.ai (YC W23)

Defog.ai was founded in 2021 by Medha Basu (left), a former journalist, and Rishabh Srivastava (right; interviewee), a full-stack developer and data scientist living in Singapore.

What does Defog.ai do?

Defog is an AI data assistant that developers can add to their apps—no machine learning expertise is required. For example, fintech companies use Defog to help their users analyse complex expense trends just by asking questions in plain English.

How did Defog.ai come about? What inspired you to start it?

Prior to starting Defog, Rishabh had run a data company for six years. His biggest limitation in scaling the business was the time spent in servicing ad-hoc questions asked by customers. With LLMs improving, he realised that an AI system that could generate and execute Python or SQL code for answering user questions was becoming feasible. And that led to the start of Defog.

Generative AI tools are becoming increasingly popular in recent months. What are your predictions over the next year?

Generative AI will start moving from consumer and SME usage to the enterprise. Privacy and governance considerations will be critical for this, and we will see smaller models that can be deployed on-premises to do specialised tasks get more adoption.

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Southeast Asia’s leading integrated car e-commerce platform, Carsome Group, has closed a new round of funding, bringing its total raise to approximately US$200 million.

The round saw participation from existing investors, including 65 Equity Partners, Seatown Private Capital Master Fund, Qatar Investment Authority, Gobi Partners, and Asia Partners.

EvolutionX Debt Capital, a growth-stage debt financing platform that provides an alternative source of financing to technology companies in Asia, also co-invested.

Carsome aims to digitise the region’s used car industry across Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Singapore. Together with subsidiaries iCar Asia, WapCar and CarTimes, Carsome provides end-to-end solutions to consumers and used car dealers across the decision funnel, from car content consumption, car inspection, and ownership transfer to financing and other ancillary services.

Also Read: Carsome acquires WapCar, AutoFun to strengthen automotive content strategy

It claims to sell over 150,000 cars annually and serves more than 15 million unique customers monthly across its diverse online and offline channels in the region. In addition to achieving over 30 per cent growth in revenue and reaching profitability, its ecosystem companies have also contributed to a 60 per cent reduction in the group’s customer acquisition cost.

Currently, the group has more than 4,000 employees.

In Q1 2023, Carsome hit an operational profitability milestone for the first time on the back of significant growth in trade margin, which doubled compared to the same period last year. Over 80 per cent of the trade margin came from transaction margins.

In 2022, the group announced its revenue grew 250 per cent to US$1.5 billion, with the newly established regional retail line, Carsome Certified, contributing 35 per cent.

Carsome Service Centres (CSC) have seen more than 100 per cent month-over-month growth since its launch at the end of last year. They are expected to reach nationwide coverage in Malaysia by the end of Q3 2023.

Co-Founder and Group CEO Eric Cheng said: “We have spent the last eight years building a more trusted way for customers to transact within Southeast Asia’s used car industry. Our comfortable liquidity position and strong backing from both existing and new investors place us on solid footing to deliver the world’s first integrated car ownership ecosystem, going beyond just buying and selling cars to include ancillary services across the whole ownership lifecycle.”

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WiredScore defines and certifies digital connectivity and smart technology in homes and offices globally. Founded in New York in 2013, WiredScore claims to have certified more than 800 million square feet of commercial and residential space, impacting more than eight million people across 37 markets.

Last year, the company expanded into Asia by opening its regional headquarters in Singapore. In late March this year, it opened an office in Thailand. So far, WiredScore has raised US$28 million across four rounds from Bessemer Venture Partners, Fifth Wall Ventures, Sterling VC, Beringea, Cushman & Wakefield, Crow Holdings, and Taronga Ventures, among others. This includes a US$15 million Series B funding in 2022.

e27 recently caught up with Thomasin Crowley, Global Director of APAC at WiredScore, to learn how the company has been addressing different challenges in the market, including the current economic slowdown.

Excerpts:

How have the past 2-3 years been for WiredScore from a business growth perspective?

WiredScore’s mission is to make the world’s buildings smarter and better connected. In line with this, we’ve continued to set the standard for technology in the built world in the past 2-3 years by assessing and improving global digital connectivity and smart capabilities in buildings through our WiredScore and SmartScore certifications.

As part of our global expansion plan, we are thrilled to have launched in Asia with the opening of our Singapore office in March 2022, our first office in Asia Pacific (APAC), which also serves as our regional headquarters. Since then, we’ve expanded our offerings to Hong Kong and, most recently, Thailand, as we aim to bring integrity and learnings from a global perspective to facilitate and advocate for the region’s transition towards a first-class, smart built environment.

To date, we have worked with over 40 owners and developers across nearly 150 buildings in APAC, certifying more than 60 million square feet (5.5 million square meters) of space.

Also Read: ‘Develop a wartime mindset during global crisis like this’: Xendit CEO Moses Lo

Some of the leading landlords and developments in Asia that we’ve been partnering with include:

• Singapore: AEW, Frasers Property, IOI Properties, Keppel REIT, Lendlease, PAG, and Shaw Towers Realty,
• Hong Kong: Swire Properties, Henderson Land Group, Kerry Properties, Nan Fung Group, Sun Hung Kai Properties, Sino Group and Empire Group
• Thailand: APAC Land, Frasers Property (Thailand), Magnolia Quality Development Corporation (MQDC), Muang Thai Life Assurance, One Bangkok, and Siam Motors

Across the globe, more than 800 million square feet of commercial and residential space have been committed to WiredScore certification, impacting more than 8 million people across 37 markets.

How does the current global economic slowdown affect your business, and what steps have you taken to mitigate any negative impacts? Have you noticed any changes in customer behaviour or demand, and how have you responded?

With our strong business fundamentals, a proven track record across North America and Europe, and a robust growing footprint across APAC, WiredScore empowers building owners to combat fluctuating social, economic and climate challenges head-on, leveraging technology implementation. We aim to expand widespread access to our offerings to encourage and foster greater connectivity, reduce carbon emissions, increase resilience against cyber threats, and enhance the health and well-being of building users worldwide, all via the power of technology in the spaces we occupy.

How has your financial strategy changed in light of the current market conditions, and what measures have you taken to ensure long-term sustainability?

Given the current market conditions, we have carefully managed our financial strategy by selectively investing in priority areas that best support our long-term goals. We are focused on delivering more impact by continuing to bring industry-enhancing products to market and empowering people and places through technology. WiredScore, as a growing team, will be in a prime position to deliver new tools and features continuously that empower landlords and occupiers of WiredScore- and SmartScore-certified buildings to thrive.

Have you adjusted your growth projections or other key performance indicators in light of the current economic climate?

We regularly review our growth projections to identify potential gaps for improvement to achieve results that are more closely aligned with our targets.

We registered good growth in the past year as we expanded our global presence from 24 markets to 37 markets. Besides opening our APAC headquarters in Singapore and subsequent launches in Hong Kong and Thailand, another key milestone for us in 2022 was our launch in the Middle East, where we work with key players in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, among others.

Can you speak of any market opportunities that have emerged due to the economic downturn and how your company is capitalising on those opportunities?

Amidst a global recession, we’re already witnessing a phenomenon the premium tier of office space tends to hold its value better, underpinned by an ongoing flight to quality by occupiers, which bolsters demand for prime spaces. Developers and occupiers should come to a unanimous realisation that smart technology is almost a defining characteristic of a prime office – an essential rather than a luxury.

This presents significant opportunities for retrofitting real estate that is future-proofed for generations to come, a part in which WiredScore could play an integral role.

One prime example is Keppel Land, which introduced emerging technologies to Keppel Bay Tower (a commercial property owned by Keppel REIT) to transform the 20-year-old building into Singapore’s first BCA Green Mark Platinum (Zero Energy) commercial building. Keppel has worked with WiredScore to benchmark Keppel Bay Tower’s digital connectivity and smart building capabilities, turned it into a manifestation of Keppel Land’s Sustainable Urban Renewal capabilities, and achieved impressive WiredScore and SmartScore recognitions.

Having grappled with waves of economic fluctuations, sustainability is one area that shows no signs of diminishing and offers real estate leaders the needed flexibility and resilience to prepare for potential future shocks. As such, it becomes a priority to secure ESG+R (Resilience) against future change, ensure we create spaces that are resilient to external challenges, and mitigate any risk factor of our investments.

The urge to build best-in-class office space and portfolio resilience has posed a significant opportunity for office landlords to embrace technology and entice global occupiers, with WiredScore’s expertise as a stepping stone. Without ESG+R commitment in place, technological obsolescence will gradually become a price that investors find exorbitant to afford, and there will be a point when we are left with stranded, un-leasable, unsellable and, ultimately, unusable assets.

How does WiredScore balance the need for short-term financial stability with the long-term goals of your business?

Focus is something we’ve had to hone as we’ve developed as a company. While we will always invest for longer-term goals, we won’t invest our time and resources in everything. Instead, we’ll look at initiatives with the highest chance of succeeding. This isn’t just a financial challenge but an operational one too.

We want to inspire deep focus across our business, and while that means turning down exciting opportunities in the short term, this is all with the view to having more capacity in the future for others.

Can you discuss your plans for diversifying your revenue streams or expanding into new markets in light of the current economic climate?

Since establishing a footprint in APAC just over a year ago, we are excited to deepen our regional roots. We’ve seen how maintaining momentum in our other, more established markets has enabled us to see the impact of empowering people and spaces through technology.

How have you maintained a strong company culture and motivated your team during these challenging times?

We strongly believe that nurturing and sustaining a healthy workplace culture is key to maintaining engagement within the firm. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we reassessed our overall employee engagement strategy. We introduced several initiatives to drive morale and energise our team members as we adopted a remote working model. Since then, we’ve sustained our commitment to being a culture-driven company and have continued to prioritise our employees’ well-being.

Some of our initiatives include ‘Donuts’, a weekly, half-hour, casual chat with a randomly selected colleague to encourage people to stay in touch and get to know colleagues from our offices globally and a dedicated annual well-being budget.

Do we see an end to the ‘raise-cash-burn-cash’ growth model and the emergence of the ‘make profits, sustain & grow’ model?

We are seeing slight shifts in the industry, with businesses now focusing more on achieving a positive cash-flow milestone rather than pushing unsustainable growth and scale. Looking at funding in 2021, for example, it was all about growth. Now, the tune has changed, and investors care more about profitability. There is a danger in following trends of what investors want rather than the right strategy for the individual business.

For example, we didn’t raise our first round of funding until five years after we launched, which was the right thing for us and our business.

WiredScore has always grown with operational effectiveness at the core; this will continue to be our approach for as long as it works for us.

What challenges does a post-Series B startup like WiredScore face compared to an early-growth-stage startup?

Post-Series B startups like WiredScore tend to have a wider team with members dispersed across several markets worldwide, compared to early-stage startups that may have just established their footprints in a single or a few markets.

For example, we have members working in the US, the UK, Singapore and Australia. Therefore, startups with global operations must establish the right structure to support their growing team, network and objectives and maintain consistency and alignment across operations while being flexible enough to tailor their products and offerings to the local markets. The executive leadership team would also need to broaden their perspective and focus on making strategic decisions that impact the firm.

Also Read: Start building a solid financial foundation early when your team is small: Aspire CEO

Another challenge companies may face is repeating success. Early adopters help you to figure out a product market fit and turn this into a scalable playbook. Replicating this with later adopters with a more established product isn’t always as straightforward.

What learnings can early or growth-stage companies make from growth-stage/late-stage companies?

Later-stage startups have experienced the journey that early-stage startups are bound to go through. This is especially so in the case of fundraising. What we’ve learned and believe is the importance of finding the right investor-company fit when it comes to fundraising for early-stage companies.

Thousands of venture capitalists are out in the market looking for companies to invest in, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are the right people for the firm. Early-stage companies must find the right strategic investor with relevant expertise to guide the firm’s growth journey and aligned values.

WiredScore has been fortunate to work with lead investors who are enthusiastic about our real estate space and have their values aligned with ours. Our strategic investors have generously devoted capital and expertise to helping us embark on an ambitious growth journey.

How is the mindset and cultural shift happening internally since we are in a high-interest rate environment and funding isn’t going to be as easy as before?

Despite the challenging environment, WiredScore remains committed to doubling down on its solid business fundamentals. The company stands in a unique position to make material contributions to the future success of the real estate industry as it navigates some of the most pressing challenges it has ever seen, including climate change, health and well-being and widespread access to connectivity. We are confident that our laser-focused approach to championing technology as a lever for greater transparency will enable a faster optimisation of the buildings that house our day-to-day lives.

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Indonesian e-commerce enabler Sirclo Group has secured US$10.5 million in a Series C funding round from Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India.

This takes the company’s total capital raised to approximately US$100 million, according to VentureCap Insights.

Founded in 2013 by Brian Marshal, Sirclo provides omnichannel commerce solutions. It offers two main categories of solutions: entrepreneur solutions and enterprise solutions.

Sirclo Store is an online store dashboard for SMEs to sell across websites, marketplaces, and chat commerce, while IbuSibuk is a solution to empower communities of mothers as key opinion leaders, micro-influencers, and resellers.

Also Read: Carsome’s new round takes its total capital raised to US$200M

In the enterprise category, it offers e-commerce enabler services, a solution for omnichannel technology development, and a B2B2C platform selling mom-and-baby products.

Through the acquisition of Warung Pintar last year, Sirclo expanded its reach to provide digital products and services for small stores called warungs in Indonesia, enabling the company to offer comprehensive solutions to this significant market segment.

In response to the challenging economic conditions, Sirclo reduced its total workforce by eight per cent in late 2022. In a statement announcing the layoffs, the company stated that all aspects of the group’s business are in the optimisation stage to achieve long-term growth.

The company currently serves over 25 million customers, with over 150,000 brands using its platform.

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Southeast Asia’s leading online used car marketplace Carro has announced its strategic investment in Driven Communications, an integrated digital content and marketing services agency focusing on the automotive industry.

Incorporated in 2008, Driven Communications comprises a portfolio of websites, including paultan.org (automotive review and vertical news content), carbase.my (buyer’s guide), and oto.my (used car classifieds).

paultan.org is an independent automotive review website in Malaysia, organically drawing monthly active visits of up to 6 million traffic.

As part of the investment, Driven Communications Co-CEOs Paul Tan and Harvinder Singh will continue to helm the business. The board of directors will remain unchanged, and employees will be assured of continued employment. Driven Communications will also continue to have complete autonomy over its editorial direction and decisions. The investment is expected to be completed within two months.

Also Read: Carro becomes unicorn following US$360M Series C raise, plans to go public in 18-24 months

Founded in 2015, Carro is an AI-driven online platform for buying and selling cars. Headquartered in Singapore, the unicorn has 4,500-plus employees across Asia Pacific and has raised over US$1 billion in debt and equity from Temasek, Softbank Vision Fund, and several other sovereign funds.

Aaron Tan, Co-Founder and CEO of Carro, said: “We have been working with Driven Communications for nearly two years. They helped us launch our first myTukar Autofair in Malaysia, and their digital online reach was incredible. Feedback from other automotive participants has been amazing; OEMs and end-customers alike rely on them. It would be a shame that it does not have the right resources and tools to scale higher.”

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