Day: January 13, 2026

Singapore-based healthtech startup Zeya Health has raised US$575,000 in pre-seed funding to expand its AI-native healthcare administration platform across the Asia-Pacific region.

The round was led by Antler, with participation from a group of strategic angel investors.

Also Read: Profit with purpose: Bridging the digital divide in healthcare

The funding comes amid mounting pressure on Southeast Asia’s healthcare systems. The regional healthcare market is projected to reach US$5 trillion by 2030; yet providers are grappling with a structural inflexion point marked by rising patient volumes, growing operational complexity, and an acute shortage of healthcare professionals.

Southeast Asia anticipates a shortage of 4.7 million healthcare workers by 2030, part of a global deficit nearing 10-18 million, driven by ageing populations and pandemics. Countries like Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, and the Philippines have low doctor-to-patient ratios below 1 per 1,000, far under Singapore’s 2.46. This gap burdens low- and middle-income nations, prompting migration and tech interventions.

Founded to address this administrative capacity gap, Zeya Health offers an AI-powered front desk that integrates directly with existing Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems and communication platforms such as WhatsApp. The solution automates routine but time-consuming tasks, including appointment reminders, follow-ups, and rescheduling, operating around the clock without requiring clinics to overhaul their core systems. According to the company, providers can go live in under 48 hours following a scan of existing workflows.

Since August, Zeya Health claims to have achieved over 20x growth in clinic onboarding and is sustaining a 2x month-on-month expansion rate. The startup is currently working with AcuMed, a leading healthcare provider in Singapore, to pilot its platform across a multi-clinic environment.

“From day zero, the Zeya team has executed with speed and discipline,” said Winnie Khoo, Partner at Antler. “They are addressing a deeply entrenched problem in healthcare: operational and administrative overhead while earning trust from providers who are cautious about adopting new systems.”

Zeya Health was co-founded by CEO Agastya Samat, who previously deployed digital health solutions for the UK’s National Health Service, and CTO Pasindu Wijesena, who founded his first AI startup five years before the launch of ChatGPT. “We’ve both seen firsthand how care teams end up spending more time fighting systems than caring for patients,” said Samat. “We started Zeya to remove that bottleneck, so providers can grow without burning out their teams.”

The startup currently serves healthcare providers across specialities such as physiotherapy, paediatrics, and primary care, and plans to expand into additional care models and regional markets in 2026.

The newly raised capital will be used for continued product development and scaled deployments across private healthcare providers in Singapore and the wider Asia-Pacific region. To support this growth, Zeya Health is actively hiring Forward Deployed Engineers and Clinical Deployment Specialists.

Also Read: The most-funded healthtech startups in Southeast Asia: A decade in review

Zeya Health’s approach aligns with a broader shift towards AI-enabled healthcare in Southeast Asia. AI revolutionises the region’s healthcare space by improving diagnostics, predicting patient deterioration, and enabling remote care to offset staff shortages. Success stories include Singapore’s Changi General Hospital using AI wearables for vital sign monitoring and complication prediction with over 90 per cent accuracy, Thailand’s Siriraj Hospital as a 5G AI smart hospital for diagnostics, and VinBrain’s DrAid X-ray tool deployed in 100+ hospitals regionally.

By positioning itself as a foundational AI layer rather than a replacement system, Zeya Health aims to help healthcare organisations scale sustainably without adding further complexity. In the company’s own framing, it acts as a “digital lubricant for the rusted gears of healthcare administration”, smoothing the friction of scheduling and paperwork so clinical teams can focus on patient care rather than process.

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Indonesia has taken another step towards institutionalising its digital asset market after the Financial Services Authority (OJK) officially granted a business licence to International Crypto Exchange (ICEx).

The licence was issued to ICEx’s operating entity, PT Fortune Integritas Mandiri. The approval positions ICEx as a key pillar in Indonesia’s evolving digital financial asset framework, which has seen crypto assets transition from commodity status to regulated financial instruments under OJK oversight.

Also Read: Southeast Asia’s crypto race heats up: Can Indonesia stay ahead?

The regulatory milestone is accompanied by a US$70 million strategic funding round, backed by a consortium of shareholders and industry players. Investors include PT Aethera Inovasi Digital, PT Finora Integrasi Nusantara, PT Regnum Sukses Utama, PT Volaris Visi Karya, and PT Vita Nova Global, alongside ecosystem participants such as FLOQ, Mobee, OSL Indonesia, Reku, Samuel Kripto, Tokocrypto, Triv, Upbit Indonesia, and Nanovest.

According to Pang Xue Kai, CEO of ICEx and founder and former CEO of Tokocrypto, the launch signals the country’s ambition to position itself as a hub for regulated digital assets. He stated that the exchange aims to deliver infrastructure that is inclusive, transparent, and aligned with institutional standards, thereby enabling healthy competition and sustainable innovation.

Beyond facilitating crypto trading, ICEx has been mandated to operate as a self-regulatory organisation (SRO). In this role, it will oversee trade reporting, market integrity monitoring, and member supervision, working closely with the OJK. Pang noted that this responsibility “reinforces public trust in the digital financial asset and crypto asset industry while opening space for innovation in new product development, including tokenised assets (RWA) and other regulated crypto products”.

Also Read: Indonesia’s digital index rises again, regional gaps narrow

From the regulator’s perspective, the introduction of additional exchanges is designed to strengthen the ecosystem. Hasan Fawzi, Executive Head of Financial Sector Technology Innovation, Digital Financial Assets, and Crypto Assets at OJK, said that having multiple licensed exchanges is essential for building a “healthier and more sustainable national ecosystem”. He added that the US$70 million capital injection reflects strong alignment between investors, regulators, and industry participants in balancing innovation with prudent supervision.

ICEx’s licensing comes amid rapid growth in Indonesia’s crypto market. As of October 2025, the country recorded 19.08 million crypto investors, representing roughly 6.7 to 6.9 per cent of its population of around 280 million. This marks a steady rise from an estimated 4.5 per cent adoption rate in 2021, driven largely by Millennials and Gen Z, who account for more than 60 per cent of users. Industry projections suggest the market could reach 25 to 27 million investors by the end of 2026, supported by high mobile and internet penetration.

The broader regulatory overhaul has also tightened compliance standards. Under OJK supervision, licensed platforms are subject to capital requirements, anti-money laundering controls, consumer protection rules, and restrictions on crypto usage as a payment instrument. OJK recognises 29 licensed platforms as of late 2025, with Indodax and Tokocrypto dominating by trading volume and user base. Other leading ones are Pintu, Upbit Indonesia, and Balderton Capital-backed Luno.

Also Read: Robinhood makes bold Indonesia bet as it acquires local brokerage and crypto trader

By combining regulatory authority with institutional funding and industry participation, ICEx is expected to play a central role in shaping Indonesia’s next phase of digital asset development. As Pang put it, the exchange intends to operate with “institutional integrity and in accordance with global standards”, marking what could be the beginning of a more mature and trusted era for Indonesia’s crypto markets.

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Markets opened the week on a note of cautious optimism, even as US exchanges remained shuttered for a holiday on January 12, 2026. The momentum carried over from the previous Friday, when the S&P 500 notched a record close at 6,966.28, buoyed by unexpectedly strong US jobs data that tempered fears of imminent and aggressive Federal Reserve rate cuts. That resilience in equities spilt into Asian trading hours, where regional benchmarks were poised to gain, reflecting renewed investor confidence in macroeconomic stability.

Geopolitical fault lines began to crack open beneath this surface calm. Escalating protests in Iran injected fresh volatility into commodity markets. Brent crude edged toward US$64 a barrel as supply disruption fears mounted, while gold, long the ultimate refuge in times of uncertainty, soared past US$4,563.61 per ounce, setting a new all-time high. The move underscored how even modest shifts in global risk perception can rapidly redirect capital flows toward safe-haven assets, especially when compounded by expectations of future monetary easing from the Fed.

Currency markets mirrored this tension. The US dollar softened notably after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell disclosed that the central bank had received grand jury subpoenas from the Justice Department, a revelation that stirred unease about the Fed’s operational independence. Against this backdrop, the euro held steady near US$1.1635, while the Japanese yen slipped to its weakest level in a year, signalling divergent policy trajectories and shifting safe-haven dynamics.

Also Read: Wallets, not smart contracts, were crypto’s biggest risk in 2025

Meanwhile, the crypto market staged a modest but meaningful rebound, climbing 1.16 per cent over the past 24 hours. This advance marked a reversal of a broader 30-day downtrend and aligned with a nascent 7-day uptick of 0.17 per cent. Three converging forces drove this recovery: institutional validation through real-world asset tokenisation, technical breakthroughs on leading Layer 1 blockchains, and speculative optimism about potential US tax reform.

Ethereum and Solana emerged as clear leaders in the Layer 1 resurgence. Ethereum’s price action placed short sellers at heightened risk, with over 11 per cent of positions vulnerable, while Solana exhibited healthy alignment across exponential moving averages, a classic signal of sustained momentum. Together, they lifted the entire Layer 1 sector by 1.22 per cent, generating US$44.75 billion in trading volume, a staggering 66.34 per cent above the broader market average. This rotation into established, high-conviction assets suggested that investors were not chasing speculative narratives but rather reallocating toward foundational protocols with proven network effects and liquidity depth. The critical levels to watch now are Ethereum’s US$3,200 support and Solana’s US$140 resistance. Both will serve as barometers of whether this rally has staying power.

Equally significant was the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation’s confirmation of progress in tokenising US Treasuries on the Canton Network. This development transcends mere technological experimentation. It represents a watershed moment in the integration of traditional finance with blockchain infrastructure. With US$300 billion in daily volume already flowing through Canton-based applications and the native token surging 13.27 per cent, the market interpreted this as a de-risking event. By anchoring sovereign-grade assets to a permissioned yet distributed ledger, institutions signal that blockchain is no longer a fringe experiment but a viable rails upgrade for core financial operations. Such validation compresses the perceived regulatory risk premium that has long shadowed crypto markets, potentially unlocking tranches of conservative capital that have been previously sidelined by compliance concerns.

Also Read: Crypto’s ticking time bomb: 5 events that will decide the 2026 bull run

Adding fuel to retail sentiment was unconfirmed but credible chatter from the White House about eliminating transaction-level taxes on cryptocurrency. Though legislative outcomes remain uncertain, the mere discussion shifted market psychology. The Fear & Greed Index climbed to 41, still in neutral territory but a marked improvement from last month’s reading of 29, which reflected deep-seated fear. If such reforms materialise, they could dramatically enhance crypto’s utility as a medium of exchange, moving it beyond speculation and into everyday economic activity.

Despite these tailwinds, participation remains restrained. Open interest across derivatives markets sits at US$600 billion, down 25 per cent from a month ago, indicating that traders are approaching this rally with discipline rather than exuberance. The absence of excessive leverage suggests that any pullback would likely be orderly rather than catastrophic.

In sum, the confluence of macro stability, geopolitical stress, institutional adoption, and regulatory hope has created a fragile but promising inflection point. The path forward hinges on two variables: whether Ethereum can defend its key support amid broader market volatility, and how quickly DTCC’s tokenisation initiative transitions from pilot to production. If both hold, this rebound may mark more than a technical bounce. It could signal the beginning of a new phase where crypto’s value proposition shifts from speculative yield to infrastructural utility.

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AI models are getting smarter by the week, but for most teams, the real struggle isn’t intelligence, it’s fragmentation. Too many tools, overlapping subscriptions, messy workflows, and no clear way to know what actually works.

In Part 1 of e27’s interview with Patrick Linden, co-founder of Iterative- and Antler-backed i10X, which enables users to access the world’s most powerful AI models through a single platform, we unpack why the Singapore-based startup is betting on a neutral AI meta-layer instead of building yet another model, how it crossed 100,000 users at pre-seed, and why retained, habitual usage — not hype — defines success in the next phase of AI adoption.

Excerpts:

AI tools are exploding everywhere. Why did you believe now was the moment to build a meta-layer instead of yet another model or agent?

Models are improving rapidly, but teams still lose time on the basics: identifying what works, integrating tools, and paying for too many overlapping subscriptions. We felt the bigger bottleneck was fragmentation, not raw intelligence.

Also Read: i10X nets US$1M to unify the world’s leading AI models

So we focused on a unified AI workspace: discover the right model or agent, use it in one place, and then connect agents into workflows as the next step. That’s also why our roadmap starts with Discovery (live) and moves to orchestration (what we call the “Agent Graph”) next, instead of trying to out-model the model providers.

At what point did you realise fragmentation, not intelligence, was the real bottleneck in AI adoption?

People weren’t blocked by “AI can’t do it”, but were blocked by:

• “Where do I even start to find what’s out there?” (too many agents, no trusted guide)
• “Which of the agents/tools actually works specifically for my needs?”
• Tool chaos and context switching
• Cost sprawl from lots of subscriptions.

Even the best models don’t help if the workflow is messy. That’s the problem we built around.

This is when realised fragmentation was the real bottleneck.

Many platforms aggregate models. What’s the most complex technical or operational problem i10X has solved that outsiders underestimate?

Aggregation is not the hard part. The hard part is making an all-in-one AI workspace really useful and reliable at scale, which includes:

• building out reliable cross-model and cross-agent memory so users don’t have to repeat context
• keeping the catalogue usable as the number of agents grows
• learning from real usage, which agent works best for a task in practice
• dynamically orchestrating the right agents/tools in our upcoming workflow engine.

If OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google were to build a unified workspace tomorrow, what would still protect i10X?

Two things: neutrality and breadth. i10X is built to help users pick the right agent for the job, not to push a single vendor’s ecosystem. Our ideal customer profile is SME owners, power users, founders and freelancers. Their goal is to find the best AI for a specific task, say a customer support chatbot or an AI sales development representative. They don’t really care in which ecosystem the solution lives. i10X sits as a neutral metalayer above individual ecosystems.

Also Read: The AI-first era: Why the model is the new runtime and how Asia can lead

Compounding usage data: Every task run in i10X teaches the Agent Graph what works best in which environment. That feedback loop improves results over time and is hard to copy without the same usage.

You’ve crossed 100,000 users at pre-seed. What metric matters more to you right now than user count? How much of that usage is habitual versus experimental, and what signals tell you i10X has become ‘mission-critical’?

We’re experiencing exponential growth in all key metrics across the board, including our paid user base. User count is nice, but we focus more on retained usage and repeat behaviour.

The metric that matters most is how many users return weekly and complete real tasks, not just browse. We look for signals like:

• repeat sessions without prompts from us
• users relying on i10X as their default place to try and run AI
• paid users staying even after the initial “AI exploration” phase
  teams consolidating multiple tools into one subscription.

What’s the most common reason users churn, and what does that reveal about the current limits of AI workspaces?

Our current churn rate is within industry standards, in line with the foundational model providers. It has improved by three times compared to where we started six months ago, mainly thanks to a laser focus on rapid improvements on the product side.

The most common churn is simple: some users come in expecting a single tool to instantly solve a vague problem. If they don’t have a clear use case, they won’t stick.

What that reveals about the current limits of AI workspaces is quite clear: the gap isn’t intelligence, but rather operational reliability – fast discovery, predictable outcomes, and an easy path from experimentation to daily use.

At US$25 a month, i10X is aggressively priced. Is this a wedge strategy or a long-term pricing belief? How do you prevent becoming a ‘thin-margin middleman’ between powerful AI providers and end users?

At US$25 per month, the intent is straightforward: make i10X an everyday “default tab”, not a high-friction procurement decision. So yes, it’s a wedge in the sense that it lowers adoption friction, but it’s also a long-term belief that AI should be priced like infrastructure, because it’s becoming part of daily work.

Also Read: The AI revolution in emerging markets: Local models, global impact

The “thin-margin middleman” framing doesn’t really fit i10X, because we’re not selling access to someone else’s product; we’re building the AI workspace where the user lives. The value compounds at that layer:

• We own the user relationship: users start with i10X to get work done; providers sit behind the interface.
• All in one space: discover, use, and orchestrate agents in a single workspace: one login, one subscription.
• Discovery that’s actually trusted: finding what works across all agents without trial-and-error.
• The Agent Graph: every task run improves indexing and recommendations, so results get better with usage.
• Workflow orchestration next: moving from “individual agents” to running repeatable multi-agent workflows.

Pricing stays simple: plans scale with credits and depth of access, and for B2B, we have seat-based pricing. The goal is strong unit economics from retention and consolidation, not from marking up tokens.

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The rise of deepfakes has evolved from a fringe technological curiosity to one of the most pressing cybersecurity concerns heading into 2026, according to new predictions from Kaspersky. As AI adoption accelerates across the Asia Pacific (APAC), the region is becoming both a proving ground for innovation and a testing arena for increasingly sophisticated cyber threats.

With 78 per cent of professionals in APAC using AI at least weekly, compared with 72 per cent globally, the scale and speed of adoption are amplifying the risks associated with synthetic content, forcing businesses and governments to rethink digital trust and resilience strategies now. For business owners and policymakers, this means prioritising AI risk assessments and embedding deepfake awareness into national and corporate cybersecurity roadmaps.

Deepfakes are no longer limited to manipulated videos of public figures; they are becoming a mainstream technology encountered by employees, consumers and organisations alike. Kaspersky notes that awareness of deepfake risks is growing, with companies increasingly training staff to recognise synthetic content and reduce the likelihood of fraud.

As deepfakes appear in more formats—video, images, voice and text—they are becoming a “stable element of the security agenda,” requiring structured policies rather than ad hoc responses. Leaders should respond by formalising internal training programmes, updating incident response plans and mandating verification processes for sensitive communications.

The threat is compounded by rapid improvements in deepfake quality and accessibility. While visual deepfakes are already highly convincing, Kaspersky predicts major advances in realistic audio, a key enabler of voice-based scams and impersonation fraud. At the same time, the barrier to entry is falling sharply, with non-experts now able to generate mid-quality deepfakes in just a few clicks.

Also Read: AI’s biggest bottleneck isn’t intelligence but fragmentation: i10X co-founder

This democratisation of creation tools means cybercriminals no longer need advanced skills to launch convincing attacks at scale. To counter this, organisations should invest in multi-factor authentication, out-of-band verification, and stricter approval workflows for financial and executive-level requests.

Efforts to label AI-generated content are expected to intensify in 2026, but progress remains uneven. There is still no unified or reliable system for identifying synthetic content, and existing labels can be easily removed or bypassed, particularly in open-source environments. As a result, Kaspersky anticipates new technical and regulatory initiatives aimed at addressing the challenge, though enforcement will lag behind innovation. Policymakers should collaborate across borders to establish minimum standards for AI content labelling, while businesses should not rely solely on labels and instead adopt layered detection and verification controls.

More advanced forms of deepfakes, such as real-time face and voice swapping, will continue to evolve, even if they remain tools for technically skilled attackers. While widespread use is unlikely in the near term, Kaspersky warns that risks will grow in targeted scenarios, including executive fraud, espionage and political manipulation. Increasing realism and the use of virtual cameras will make these attacks harder to detect and more persuasive. High-risk organisations should conduct threat modelling for targeted deepfake attacks and limit the public exposure of executive audio and video data wherever possible.

The growing use of open-weight AI models is also blurring the line between legitimate and malicious applications. As these models approach the capabilities of closed systems in cybersecurity-related tasks, they offer more opportunities for misuse due to weaker safeguards. At the same time, AI-generated phishing emails, fake websites, and synthetic brand assets are becoming increasingly indistinguishable from legitimate content, especially as companies themselves adopt AI in their marketing and communications. Businesses must strengthen brand protection, monitor for impersonation and educate customers on official communication channels to reduce fraud risks.

“Attackers are using it to automate attacks, exploit vulnerabilities, and create highly convincing fake content,” said Vladislav Tushkanov, research development group manager at Kaspersky. “At the same time, defenders are applying AI to scan systems, detect threats, and make faster, smarter decisions.”

Also Read: The ASEAN AI rush: Why “move fast and break things” is a dangerous strategy for risk

For the APAC region, the stakes are particularly high. “Asia Pacific is setting the global pace for AI adoption,” said Adrian Hia, managing director for Asia Pacific at Kaspersky. “This momentum is creating tremendous opportunity, but also redefining how cyber threats emerge and scale.”

As deepfakes cement their place as a top cybersecurity concern of 2026, resilience will depend on preparation rather than reaction.

Kaspersky recommends regular data backups, isolated from networks, and the use of advanced security platforms to detect and neutralise complex threats. These steps, which policymakers and business leaders alike must champion, are crucial to safeguarding trust in an AI-driven economy.

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The lead image in this article is AI-generated.

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