Anyone who has run security at a large Singapore organisation knows the routine. A vendor turns up with a slide deck, a slick demo and a quarterly target, and the talk is about the product long before anyone has asked what is actually keeping the security team up at night.

Raz Kotler has sat on the receiving end of that meeting more often than he would like. Now he is building a company that promises to do it the other way round.

Scouter, which launched in Singapore today, calls itself a “services-first” cybersecurity business. It pairs a short, curated list of security technologies with local engineers who help organisations choose, test, deploy and look after them.

Also Read: Singapore’s cybersecurity paradox: Leading in digital, lagging in defense

“Having spent years on the CISO side, including at PayPal, I know how frustrating it can be when someone tries to sell you a solution before understanding your problem,” Kotler said.

Most security chiefs will recognise the complaint. The harder question is whether Scouter can avoid becoming the thing it criticises.

From the buyer’s chair to the seller’s

Kotler is no newcomer to the region’s security circuit. Before Scouter, he had held several security leadership roles: Global Oversight CISO at PayPal, CISO at XM Cyber, head of security operations and engineering at an Israeli bank, and VP CISO at Deep Instinct.

Scouter is not a lone startup, either. It is the third Singapore business in a group that already includes Dart and Aleph, formerly known as Red Alpha. Together, the group claims nine years of work with Singapore enterprises, more than 30 government and enterprise customers, and more than 500 cybersecurity professionals placed through Aleph.

That history matters. Selling security to Singapore’s public sector and regulated industries is a relationship business, with long procurement cycles and very little patience for unfamiliar names. Scouter is new, but it is not starting from scratch.

What Scouter actually sells

The technology list is short: Wiz, Island, Oligo and Mate. The biggest name is Wiz, the cloud security platform that Google bought for US$32 billion in a deal that closed on March 11, 2026. Island makes an enterprise browser that puts security controls inside the browser itself. Oligo focuses on protecting applications while they run.

Around these products sit four service lines: Managed Detection & Response (MDR), which means outsourced round-the-clock monitoring and incident handling; Forward-Deployed Cyber Engineer; Architecture, Validation & Implementation; and Enablement & Lifecycle Support.

The forward-deployed engineer is the most interesting of the four. Palantir made the model famous: an engineer works inside the customer’s environment instead of handing over a product and leaving. In security, where tools often sit half-configured on a shelf, that could make a real difference.

Also Read: The demand for SMB cybersecurity is inevitable, the supply was never built correctly

The core pitch is validation before implementation. Scouter says it will show that a tool works in a client’s own environment before the client commits to it, and then support it after deployment.

The timing helps. Attackers are getting cheaper and faster, with AI agents now able to break into companies for pocket change. Regulators are also paying closer attention: the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Association of Banks in Singapore recently formed a taskforce on AI-driven cyber risk. Buyers have less money and less time for tools that disappoint.

The independence question

There is a tension here that the launch announcement does not address. Scouter presents itself as starting from the customer’s problem. But it also has a curated portfolio of four vendors, and that is still a catalogue. An adviser that also earns money reselling the products it recommends has a conflict of interest, however good its intentions.

The release also leaves out several things a buyer would want to know: how Scouter makes money, what it charges, who its first customers are, how many people it employs today, and whether it has outside funding. It is fair to ask what Scouter will tell a client whose best answer is not on its list, or whose best answer is to buy nothing new at all.

A crowded middle market

Scouter is entering a busy part of Singapore’s security market. At the top end are the heavyweights: Ensign InfoSecurity, ST Engineering’s cyber arm and Singtel-owned NCS. These firms bundle advisory, managed services and integration for government and large enterprises. Global managed security providers and value-added resellers compete for the same budgets. Regional distributors supply much of the hardware and software. The vendors themselves increasingly sell professional services directly, and Wiz now sits inside a Google Cloud that also owns incident-response specialist Mandiant.

Scouter’s advantage is meant to be focus: a buyer’s-eye view from a former CISO, a deliberately small portfolio, and engineers embedded with the client rather than a sales team. Whether that is a lasting position or just a niche will depend on how many of the group’s 30-plus existing customers decide to sign up.

The talent bet

The part of the launch with the most potential is also the least detailed. Scouter says it is building Singapore’s AI security capability by training its current staff, which is already underway, and by hiring more engineers. It has not given any numbers for either.

The need is real. In 2025, Red Alpha itself pointed to an estimated shortfall of nearly 4,000 cybersecurity professionals in Singapore. AI security is a newer field still, and few people in the region have hands-on experience securing models, agents and the data pipelines that feed them. Singapore has written strong rules, but reports suggest it struggles to enforce them, and that the skills gap remains the bottleneck.

Aleph’s background in training people for security jobs gives Scouter some credibility on this front. A promise to build local skills is easy to make, though. The real test will be how many engineers Scouter hires, how they are trained, and whether clients’ own teams end up able to run the technology without Scouter.

Also Read: AI is already inside the enterprise. Has security kept up in Asia?

Kotler has identified a frustration that nearly every CISO in the region shares. If Scouter’s engineers are willing to tell a client “you don’t need this,” it may stand out in a market built on selling. If they are not, it will be one more reseller.

The post Scouter enters Singapore’s crowded cyber market with a “listen first” promise appeared first on e27.

Ask a room of enterprise executives whether they can keep their AI agents in line and most will nod. Ask them what happens when two of those agents disagree, and the room goes quiet.

That, in essence, is the finding of a new report from OutSystems, the Lisbon-born low-code company that now markets itself as an “Agentic Systems Platform”. Produced with trade publication CIO Dive and consultancy KPMG, Engineering Business Outcomes: The Shift to Agentic Systems surveyed more than 850 IT decision-makers. Some 82 per cent said their organisations can keep pace with governing, integrating and monitoring AI agents as they move into production. Only 26 per cent said they were well prepared to resolve conflicts across agents, systems and automated workflows.

Also Read: The hidden economics of autonomous AI agents

That 56-percentage-point gap is the story. Confidence is cheap. Conflict resolution is not.

What an agent fight looks like

An AI agent, unlike a chatbot, does not just answer. It acts: it updates a record, triggers a refund, books a shipment. Put several of them inside one company and they start treading on each other’s toes. A procurement agent trims inventory while a sales agent promises next-day delivery. A risk agent freezes an account that a customer-service agent has just reactivated. Each is following its own rules. Together, they create a mess, and someone has to decide which action stands and how to unwind the other.

The report suggests most enterprises are not wired to make that call quickly. While 83 per cent rely on existing IT, security or compliance processes, specialised reviews or centralised policies to oversee agents that can act autonomously, just five per cent have automated controls, audit trails and formal human review points in place. Oversight, in other words, is still largely a person reading logs after the damage is done.

Southeast Asia has seen this film before

None of this will surprise anyone tracking enterprise AI in the region. In June, research by Sinch found that Singapore led Asia Pacific in deploying AI agents and also in pulling them back after going live, with 82 per cent of the city-state’s enterprises reporting a rollback or shutdown. In August, a Sumsub and Singapore Fintech Association study found that 94 per cent of Singapore businesses were using or piloting multi-step AI systems, yet only 29 per cent could produce an audit trail for AI-driven decisions.

The engineering floor is warier than the boardroom. The Agoda AI Developer Report 2026, which polled more than 800 developers across Southeast Asia and India, found that 79 per cent require human approval before AI-generated work goes live. Agents are trusted, but not with production. Thailand’s SCB 10X even caught agents confidently declaring tasks complete when the underlying code had failed its specifications.

Regulators have taken note. Last week, Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) unveiled a starter kit for testing agentic systems and an accreditation scheme for third-party AI testers, effectively building an industry whose job is to check the agents. One of the kit’s metrics, handoff accuracy, measures whether an agent passed a task to the right agent or human. That is precisely the seam where the OutSystems respondents admit they are weakest.

The data problem underneath

Agents collide most often when they are working from different versions of the truth. More than a third of respondents (35 per cent) cited data consistency and context sharing as a major orchestration hurdle, which is a polite way of saying agents are too often running on generic model knowledge rather than governed company data and live application states.

Also Read: Agentic AI is Singapore’s hottest job skill, and that should worry the people it replaces

Singapore has its own version of this headache. A Confluent survey in July found that 78 per cent of the city-state’s IT leaders flagged a lack of real-time data infrastructure, leaving agentic ambitions stuck on legacy systems and data quality gaps.

Buyers also want an exit door. Some 74 per cent prioritise integration with existing applications, 63 per cent want agent orchestration across systems, and 62 per cent value the ability to switch models, vendors and platforms over time. After a decade of cloud lock-in, enterprises are in no mood to marry a single AI supplier.

Read the fine print

A dose of scepticism is warranted. This is vendor-commissioned research, and its central prescription, that governance must be built into the platform and enforced while agents run rather than reviewed afterwards, happens to describe what OutSystems sells.

Tiago Azevedo, the company’s CIO, makes the pitch plainly: “Safety comes from building control into the platform, not reviewing it afterward.” KPMG Managing Director Michael Harper argues that logging and procedural governance were designed for static software, and that enterprises now need policy-as-code and runtime guardrails. Both points are reasonable. Both also lead neatly to a purchase order.

The outcome data is more revealing than the quotes. Error reduction (64 per cent) is the leading measure of impact, followed by compliance and risk reduction, productivity and cost. Yet only 12 per cent say agentic AI has sped up the launch of new products, services or customer experiences. Agents are tidying up existing operations, not inventing new businesses. Meanwhile, 81 per cent rate testing and validating agent behaviour as very or extremely important when choosing a platform, which tells you how little they trust what is already running.

Context matters, too. Last year’s edition of the same study, based on 550 software executives, found 93 per cent of organisations building or planning custom agents. The ambition has arrived. The plumbing has not.

A crowded referee’s chair

OutSystems is hardly alone in offering to referee. Salesforce is pushing Agentforce, Microsoft has Copilot Studio, ServiceNow and UiPath are pitching orchestration layers, and low-code rivals such as Siemens-owned Mendix and Appian are making near-identical governance promises. Each claims its platform is the safest place for agents to work together. The 62 per cent of buyers who want the freedom to switch suggest few are ready to hand the whistle to any single vendor.

In Southeast Asia, banks are drawing the line in their own way, as UOB’s research shows: AI agents can move money, as long as someone is accountable. Even model makers are wrestling with the problem; OpenAI shelved its GPT-6.1 Astra model this month amid concerns over how honestly the agent reported its own work.

Also Read: Moving past the chatbox: The hidden risks of agentic AI and MCP in enterprise infrastructure

The harder question is who referees the agents at companies that cannot afford a KPMG engagement. A mid-sized retailer in Jakarta or a lender in Manila deploying off-the-shelf agents will rely on whatever controls its vendors ship, plus free templates such as IMDA’s. As AI governance moves from promises to proof, that is where the next failures, and the next regulations, are likely to emerge.

Eighty-two per cent of executives believe they can govern their agents. The other number, 26, is probably closer to the truth.

The post Who referees the AI agents? Enterprises aren’t sure, new report shows appeared first on e27.

From October 27 to 29, 33 Taiwanese startups will exhibit at the Taiwan Pavilion at SWITCH 2026 in Singapore (Booth Q01, Sands Expo & Convention Centre), as part of Taiwan Tech Week in Singapore. The delegation is led by Startup Island TAIWAN, Taiwan’s national startup brand backed by the National Development Council (NDC), in partnership with Startup Terrace, Hsinchu Science Park Bureau, the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) and Taiwan Digi Gold Card.

Southeast Asia’s innovation economy is moving from experimentation to execution. Enterprises across the region are looking for technology that can be piloted quickly, integrated into existing operations, and scaled across borders.

That is the opportunity the delegation is bringing to Singapore. It spans four sectors: manufacturing and semiconductors, AI and software, healthcare and biotechnology, and energy and sustainability. Many of the startups are already running pilots or serving paying customers, and they are coming to SWITCH to meet enterprise partners, distributors, and investors from across the region.

A look at who’s exhibiting

Manufacturing, hardware and semiconductors

AiXaS (active interposerX as service)

Taiwan-based semiconductor startup AiXaS (active interposerX as service) supports physical-AI design. At SWITCH 2026, AiXaS is looking for system migration clients and chiplet supply-chain counterparts.

Alpenglow Tek

Taiwan-based AI chip startup Alpenglow Tek provides ultra-low-power AI chips that help device manufacturers enable always-on AI sensing and real-time interaction with 100x lower power consumption. In 2026, Alpenglow Tek won the Gold Award in the IC Design category for Startups and SMEs at Taiwan’s 2026 Smart Innovation Awards, and has 3 paying customers and 10 potential customers in its sales pipeline. At SWITCH 2026, Alpenglow Tek is looking to meet wearable device and robotics manufacturers looking to integrate on-device AI into their products.

Hyarks

Taiwan-based marine technology startup Hyarks develops modular autonomous Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) and integrated platforms to drive safe, sustainable, and efficient maritime operations for commercial fleets and offshore operators. In 2026, Hyarks secured deployment agreements for its TF-100 USV platform with 5 industry leaders. At SWITCH 2026, Hyarks is looking to meet investors.

Leafy Lab

Deterministic AI for every chip that powers the physical world. Taiwan-based semiconductor AI startup Leafy Lab serves 6 enterprise clients in 2 countries, with technology more than 10x faster than current manual processes. At SWITCH 2026, Leafy Lab is looking for customers.

Memorence AI

Taiwan-based industrial AI startup Memorence AI provides reliable instant-learning AI that helps high-mix manufacturers improve vision-language guidance, inspection, and traceability across real-world production environments. Memorence AI was named a CES Innovation Awards 2026 Honoree in Enterprise Tech and won the Embedded Vision category at the embedded award 2026. At SWITCH 2026, Memorence AI is looking for customers among manufacturers in electronics, semiconductors, medical devices, aerospace, and other high-mix, high-value industries.

NanoKnife Semiconductor Technologies Co., Ltd.

Taiwan-based semiconductor startup NanoKnife Semiconductor focuses on improving Through-Silicon Via, or TSV, fabrication for advanced semiconductor packaging. At SWITCH 2026, NanoKnife Semiconductor is looking for technology and R&D partners.

Nudesign

Taiwan-based aviation technology startup Nudesign develops innovative 4-stroke aviation powertrains that deliver superior fuel efficiency, reliability, and payload performance for drones and light aircraft. Nudesign has grown from one customer to 2 customers, with about a 10 per cent revenue increase over last year. At SWITCH 2026, Nudesign is looking to run PoCs with drone manufacturers, aerospace companies and urban air mobility innovators.

SiCEV

Taiwan-based power semiconductor startup SiCEV provides customised power device design services and works closely with customers to enhance product performance and accelerate time-to-market. SiCEV has raised NT$200 million and has been granted 12 Taiwan invention patents. At SWITCH 2026, SiCEV is looking to meet potential customers.

Tera Electronics

Taiwan-based optical interconnect startup Tera Electronics provides MicroLED optical interconnect solutions that help AI data centre and HPC system developers increase data transmission bandwidth and reduce power consumption. In 2026, Tera Electronics raised over NT$300 million to advance MicroLED optical interconnect development and commercialisation, and joined the NVIDIA Inception program. At SWITCH 2026, Tera is seeking Southeast Asian partners to advance joint development and commercialisation for AI data centers and HPC systems.

WEAVEN

Taiwan-based AIoT startup WEAVEN provides AIoT watch boxes generating Digital Health Resumes to help luxury watch collectors optimise servicing, helping reduce blind trading risks and maximise resale value. WEAVEN has accumulated over 35,000 unique movement health data points and co-hosted exclusive events with BVLGARI. At SWITCH 2026, WEAVEN is looking to meet channel partners and potential customers.

Also Read: Taiwan bets on Gen Z founders to move beyond its chip-supplier image

AI and software solutions

Aira

Taiwan-based AI startup AIRA provides CPU-optimised AI video analytics solutions that help enterprises, system integrators, and security operators enhance safety, operational efficiency, and intelligence using existing camera infrastructure. AIRA’s smart factory solution reduced attendance processing time from 16 hours to 1 hour, while increasing equipment utilisation by 50 per cent and production capacity by 53.26 per cent. At SWITCH 2026, AIRA is looking for local system integrators to enable on-site deployment and customer support.

Asiabots Limited

Taiwan-based AI startup Asiabots provides AI Ambassador, AI Voicebot and AI Chatbot that help enterprises deliver multilingual customer service across physical locations, phone calls and digital channels. In 2025, Asiabots received the 24th Startup Award from Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA). At SWITCH 2026, Asiabots aims to explore partnerships for local pilots and regional deployment with enterprise decision-makers in retail, hospitality, transportation and public services.

Cellbedell

Taiwan-based smart building startup Godspeed provides Cellbedell, a Smart Building OS combining virtual keys, edge verification and Nexus infrastructure to help commercial spaces automate access and unattended operations. By August 2026, Cellbedell had more than 250 partners and business clients. At SWITCH 2026, Godspeed is seeking Singapore enterprise partners and pilot sites to expand across offices, co-working spaces and hospitality in Southeast Asia.

eCloudEdge / NeoEdge

Taiwan-based industrial AI startup eCloudEdge provides NeoEdge, a data governance and industrial AI orchestration platform that helps manufacturers connect and govern OT/IT data, building domain-specific AI agents to optimise processes and reduce costs. eCloudEdge was included in STL Partners’ “50 edge computing companies to watch in 2026” list. At SWITCH 2026, eCloudEdge is looking for Singapore-based OT system integrators and industrial automation solution providers who can co-deliver NeoEdge to local manufacturers.

futurenest

Taiwan-based enterprise AI startup futurenest builds the foundational infrastructure for enterprise intelligence: Xerno governs what AI knows and Xparse governs how AI acts, so regulated enterprises can deploy intelligence at scale without surrendering control over it. futurenest has 12 signed enterprise customers, all contracted and in active deployment across three regulated domains: telecom, national defense and national transport. At SWITCH 2026, futurenest is looking for enterprise partners.

LMT

Taiwan-based fintech startup Light Momentum Technology provides ultra-low-latency FPGA trading infrastructure and AI financial automation that help financial institutions accelerate execution, optimise operations, and improve system efficiency. LMT has worked with leading Taiwanese securities firms on low-latency trading systems, helping optimise execution performance and system stability. At SWITCH 2026, LMT is seeking strategic partners for overseas deployment, co-development and market entry.

MantaGO

Taiwan-based AI startup Eslitec builds AI driven CRM ecosystem tailored for SMEs, making customer engagement simpler and more strategic. Eslitec has 2,280 clients worldwide and has partnered with 25 distributors. At SWITCH 2026, MantaGO is looking for distributors and channel partners.

Next Integral

Taiwan-based edge AI startup Next Integral develops NEXUO, a modular Edge AI platform transforming existing cameras into real-time safety monitoring and operational intelligence for factories, smart facilities, logistics, and care environments. Next Integral was selected for CES USA 2026, VivaTech France 2026, IFA Germany 2026 and Fly Asia Korea 2026. At SWITCH 2026, Next Integral is seeking Singapore partners to validate NEXUO in local environments through 60–90 day PoCs.

Optiqb

Optiqb AI Technology is a Taiwan-based AI startup specialising in 3D vision, bringing a new era of 3D vision in the mobile age through AI computer vision and optical technology. Optiqb won Best in AI and Robotics at the Global Deep Tech Battle at VivaTech 2025. At SWITCH 2026, Optiqb is looking for enterprise partners and content providers.

Speculum AI

Taiwan-based AI startup Speculum AI provides an AI runtime layer that helps organisations building and operating LLMs, agents and physical AI achieve greater stability, control and efficiency across cloud, on-prem and edge environments. Within six months of entering the market, Speculum AI secured an enterprise PoC with a major Japanese system integrator and established local operations in Japan. As it plans its expansion into Singapore, Speculum AI aims to grow its customer and channel partner network through SWITCH 2026.

KABOB Cloud- StreamActivate

Taiwan-based data analytics startup StreamActivate provides a real-time data management and analytics platform that helps enterprises turn live data into actionable insights, respond faster, and build an AI-ready data foundation. In 2026, technical validation with Coretronic demonstrated a 53 per cent reduction in combined inspection, measurement, and reporting time, from 1,616 to 755 minutes. At SWITCH 2026, StreamActivate aims to connect with regional system integrators and channel partners.

Tenfold AI

Taiwan-based legal AI startup Tenfold AI provides a civil-law legal AI platform LexGents that helps APAC lawyers research, draft, and review legal work with trusted local-law grounding. Tenfold AI serves 20+ corporates and law firms with 300+ users across 4 countries, and has raised US$300K. At SWITCH 2026, Tenfold AI is looking to secure PoCs with government, in-house legal teams and small law firms.

Also Read: Entering Taiwan: A practical resource map for foreign founders

Healthcare and biotechnology

Coherence Bio

Taiwan-based biotech startup Coherence builds Keystone, a benchtop continuous lab automation system that helps organoid producers and drug discovery teams keep multi-day cell and organoid experiments on one controlled timeline and record. In 2026, Coherence Bio signed a pilot agreement and letter of intent with a Korean organoid manufacturer and won first prize in the medical-device category for startup companies at the 2026 NBRP Demo & Pitch Day. At SWITCH 2026, Coherence Bio is looking to secure PoCs with organoid and cell-model producers, research institutes and AI drug-discovery teams, and to meet life-science and deep-tech investors.

EpiSante Biomed

EpiSante Biomedical is a Taiwan-based biotechnology company developing precision medicine technology based on DNA methylation platforms, including a liver cancer methylation test kit for early detection and disease monitoring. At SWITCH 2026, EpiSante Biomed is looking to meet investors.

Fluidiconic Biotechnology

Taiwan-based biotech startup Fluidiconic provides MedSelect®, a patient-derived tumor platform that helps drug developers evaluate treatment responses in human-relevant models and select promising cancer therapies for further development. Fluidiconic has 19 paying customers, including pharmaceutical companies and research centers, and its drug-response results showed 91.6 per cent agreement with animal-study outcomes. At SWITCH 2026, Fluidiconic is looking to meet investors and is seeking Singapore and Southeast Asian partners to bring patient-derived drug-response evidence into cancer research.

ible

Taiwan-based health tech startup ible Technology provides wearable air purifiers and air purification solutions that help individuals reduce exposure to airborne pollutants/ viruses and enjoy cleaner air wherever they go. ible has received two CES Innovation Awards recognitions and one German Innovation Award, and has established sales presence in Japan and Switzerland. At SWITCH 2026, ible is looking for distribution and retail partners to expand into Southeast Asia.

LongGood

Taiwan-based digital health startup LongGood provides digital rehabilitation that helps therapists, physicians, and patients keep on track with their rehabilitation journey. LongGood has customers across Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, and Hong Kong. At SWITCH 2026, LongGood is looking for distributors or channel partners.

ST Medical

Taiwan-based medical AI startup ST Medical Technology develops AI-powered clinical research and medical data platforms that help hospitals and biotech teams accelerate analysis, collaboration, and healthcare innovation. ST Medical serves 20+ enterprise, healthcare, and research clients across 4 countries. At SWITCH 2026, ST Medical is looking for distributors or channel partners as it builds new partnerships in Europe and Southeast Asia.

Also Read: AI could turn concierge medicine into the future interface to healthcare

Energy and sustainability

Ancillary Power Corp. Ltd.

Taiwan-based energy tech startup Ancillary Power provides an AI-powered Virtual Power Plant platform and green energy trading solutions that help industrial clients and RE100 enterprises to optimise electricity costs and achieve net-zero targets. Ancillary Power has aggregated over 270 MW of distributed energy resources, and its revenue grew from NT$133M in 2024 to NT$334M in 2025. At SWITCH 2026, Ancillary Power is seeking enterprise partners among telecoms, hotel franchises, energy companies and AI data centres.

Apollo Power

Taiwan-based energy tech startup Apollo Power delivers AI-driven energy management and renewable energy services, with an AI dispatch system that helps energy-intensive industries cut costs and strengthen supply stability. Apollo Power registered on Taiwan’s Emerging Stock Board on April 28, 2026, and it manages over 100 GWh of cumulative green electricity procurement and dispatch. At SWITCH 2026, Apollo Power is looking to secure PoCs with Southeast Asian enterprises, commercial property developers, and regional sustainability leaders.

AquaOptima

Taiwan-based water tech startup AquaOptima provides an AI Operator solution for water utilities that helps water treatment plants, pumping stations, and distribution networks run pumps autonomously — reducing energy consumption and minimising water loss. AquaOptima has 2 active deployments with Taiwan Water Corporation, and has achieved 15–20 per cent energy savings at the Yilan water treatment plant, with third-party measurement and verification by Carbon Trust ongoing. AquaOptima is actively closing its seed round, and investor introductions and meetings are welcome at SWITCH 2026.

CarbonClean Energy

Taiwan-based climate tech startup CarbonClean Energy provides modular CO₂ electrolysis systems that help industrial manufacturers convert captured CO₂ into syngas and green chemicals, enabling practical industrial decarbonisation and circular carbon utilisation. In 2026, CarbonClean Energy completed a 3-week continuous field demonstration using real industrial flue gas and established industrial collaborations with Tung Ho Steel and Chang Chun Group. At SWITCH 2026, CarbonClean Energy is looking to secure a PoC as it explores partnerships in Southeast Asia.

3Egreen (Extreme Energy Efficiency)

Taiwan-based energy tech startup 3Egreen provides Edge-AI energy monitoring IIoTand predictive maintenance solutions that help high-tech and industrial manufacturing plants optimise power efficiency and prevent equipment downtime. 3Egreen has deployed its Edge-AI energy monitoring and asset diagnostics solutions across leading high-tech and semiconductor manufacturing ecosystems, including Tier-1 global memory manufacturers and key regional system integrators. At SWITCH 2026, 3Egreen is looking to meet power and utility companies and ESG consultants.

Meet them at SWITCH 2026

The Taiwan Pavilion is open from October 27 to 29, 09:00–18:00, at Sands Expo & Convention Centre, Level 1, Booth Q01. Visitors can meet the founders, explore partnership opportunities, and view the startups’ one-pagers here.

—

Want updates like this delivered directly? Join our WhatsApp channel and stay in the loop.

The post Taiwan Pavilion at SWITCH 2026: Meet the 33 Taiwanese startups heading to Singapore appeared first on e27.

Vingroup is opening a third Asian manufacturing front for its electric vehicle (EV) ambitions. The Vietnamese conglomerate, best known for EV maker VinFast, plans to invest US$500 million in a flagship EV plant in the Philippines, the country’s Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said on Wednesday.

The factory is designed to produce 200,000 vehicles a year at the outset, for both domestic buyers and export markets.

Construction is slated to begin in the first quarter of 2027 and take 12 to 18 months, which puts the earliest realistic start of production somewhere in 2028. Alongside four-wheelers, Vingroup also plans to bring electric scooters to the Philippine market.

Also Read: EVs gain ground in the Philippines as fuel costs squeeze drivers

The DTI pitched the project as more than a car factory, describing it as a possible base for Vingroup’s expansion into multiple industries in the country. Trade Secretary Cristina Roque said the investment reflects the Philippines’ growing status as a Southeast Asian hub for advanced manufacturing and green technology, and promised “end-to-end support” for investors.

The maths behind 200,000 units

The headline capacity deserves a second look. BMI Country Risk and Industry Research expects the Philippines to sell 423,750 vehicles in total in 2026, of which only 32,776 will be EVs, a figure that includes plug-in hybrids. On those numbers, the plant could build about six times the country’s entire projected EV market for the year, and close to half of all new cars Filipinos are expected to buy. Even BMI’s more bullish 2030 forecast of 91,730 EV sales leaves the factory with plenty of idle capacity.

The export clause, in other words, is the business case. ASEAN’s free trade framework allows vehicles that meet regional content rules to move across the bloc without tariffs, and the Philippines sits on busy shipping routes to the rest of Southeast Asia and beyond.

There is a policy wrinkle, too. Battery EVs imported into the Philippines are currently exempt from import tariffs and excise taxes until 2028, roughly when the plant is due to come online. That means a locally built VinFast would get little tariff protection against imported Chinese models in its early years. Its advantage must come from elsewhere: tax breaks under the CREATE MORE Act, which extends incentives such as enhanced deductions and lower corporate income tax rates for registered projects, and faster permitting through the “Green Lanes” set up under Executive Order No. 18 for strategic investments. If the import exemptions lapse after 2028, a local factory becomes considerably more valuable. The timing may be less coincidental than it looks.

A familiar playbook, now in its third country

The Philippine plant follows a template VinFast has already rolled out twice. In Indonesia, it opened a US$300 million factory in Subang, West Java, about 120 km south-east of Jakarta, in December 2025, and said it would spend US$1 billion to expand capacity to 350,000 vehicles a year. In India, where its plant is in Tamil Nadu, it announced plans that same month to invest US$500 million to triple output.

Manila’s courtship has been a long one. In January 2024, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr met Vingroup chairman Pham Nhat Vuong in Hanoi, where the conversation revolved around dealerships, battery production and nickel processing. Two and a half years later, it has become a factory.

Also Read: BYD co-founder-backed OMOWAY bags funding to join Southeast Asia’s electric motorcycle race

The scooter plan may prove the more interesting bet. Two-wheelers and tricycles are the workhorses of Philippine streets, and Marcos has repeatedly tied EV policy to replacing ageing jeepneys and tricycles. VinFast has form here: its ride-hailing affiliate Green SM has taken e-scooters into Jakarta’s ojek economy, and the company has experimented with rentals to get around Southeast Asia’s affordability problem.

Rivals already in the garage

VinFast will not have the road to itself. Chinese brands, including BYD, MG, GAC Aion and Chery, are already pushing EV prices down in the Philippines with affordable SUVs and crossovers. BYD has also built manufacturing capacity in Thailand, which has positioned itself as a regional EV production hub, while Indonesia has used its nickel reserves to lure battery and EV makers. Japanese incumbents such as Toyota and Mitsubishi, which assemble vehicles locally, still dominate the Philippine market and are leaning on hybrids, a format many buyers prefer while charging remains scarce.

At home, VinFast is a heavyweight, accounting for 42 per cent of Vietnam’s domestic car sales in August 2026, helped by its own charging network and taxi fleets. Abroad, it is a challenger with a modest brand, competing in a regional EV race that has become crowded quickly. Even its home turf is being contested, with Tesla now incorporated in Vietnam.

Can the balance sheet carry it?

The bigger question is money. VinFast reported unaudited second-quarter 2026 revenue of VND30,340.9 billion (about US$1.2 billion), up 85 per cent year-on-year. That is impressive growth. But its loss from continuing operations widened 128 per cent to VND31,189.2 billion (about US$1.2 billion), which means it lost slightly more than it earned.

The total net loss of VND1,414.9 billion (about US$54 million) looks far healthier, but only because of a gain from discontinued operations. That is an accounting effect, not evidence that the core business is turning around.

Also Read: Tesla establishes Vietnam subsidiary as EV rivalry with VinFast looms

VinFast has long relied on financial backing from Vingroup and its founder to fund its expansion, and the Philippine project is being announced under the parent’s banner. That may be deliberate. The DTI’s talk of a multi-industry base suggests the conglomerate, not just the carmaker, is putting its name to it.

For the Philippines, which is still building out a network of only about 1,600 charging points, the plant is a welcome signal that it can compete with Thailand and Indonesia for EV manufacturing. Whether that signal turns into reality depends less on ribbon-cuttings in 2028 and more on whether the ships leaving Philippine ports are full.

The post A 200,000-car plant for a 33,000-EV market: Inside VinFast’s Philippine gamble appeared first on e27.

Indonesia’s D2C and inventory-heavy startup sector looks different in 2026 than it did before 2022. The cohort of platforms that scaled between 2018 and 2021 (Fabelio in furniture, several in F&B, fashion, and household goods) encountered a category of operational risk that the original venture playbook tended to underestimate. Some platforms have stabilised. Several have restructured significantly. Fabelio, which entered PKPU proceedings in 2022 and was subsequently declared insolvent, is one of the more publicly documented examples.

After 15 years inside Indonesian risk functions, I have watched this sector with more interest than the financial services focus would suggest. The operational risk patterns underneath the D2C failures of this period are not unique to those sectors. They recur in any business where the gap between cash going out and cash coming back is large, and the venture funding model assumes that gap can be financed indefinitely.

What the D2C generation aimed to do

The Indonesian D2C cohort that emerged after 2018 had a clean thesis. Indonesia’s rising middle class, expanding e-commerce infrastructure, and digital payment penetration created a window for direct-to-consumer brands to skip traditional retail intermediation. The implicit assumption was that unit economics would improve as scale increased: customer acquisition costs would decline, operational costs would compress, working capital intensity would moderate.

What turned out to be harder

Three structural factors made the path harder than the original models priced in.

The cash conversion cycle. D2C businesses convert capital into inventory, inventory into delivered orders, and delivered orders into recognised revenue across a cycle structurally longer than software businesses face. A platform that grows 100 per cent in revenue often grows working capital requirements faster than that, especially when product categories carry inventory and returns risk.

Also Read: The agritech credit paradox: Lessons from TaniHub and Indonesia’s first agritech generation

Inventory as a financial product. The inventory on a D2C platform’s balance sheet is not just stock. It is essentially a leveraged position on consumer demand at the price and SKU mix chosen six to 12 months earlier. When demand shifts, the inventory becomes more expensive to liquidate than to acquire. Platforms that priced inventory as a working capital line item rather than as a market exposure mispriced one of their largest risks.

Operational fragility at scale. Operational systems that work for a hundred orders a day break down at a thousand orders a day in ways not always visible until they break. The platforms that scaled fastest sometimes did so on top of operational systems that were not actually ready for the volume, with quality and customer experience consequences that compounded into churn and brand damage.

Lessons learned

Six principles emerge from the Indonesian D2C cycle.

Working capital is the business model. For inventory-heavy D2C, working capital management is not back-office. It is the business. Platforms that treated cash conversion cycle, payment terms, and inventory turn as primary metrics outperformed those that treated them as supporting metrics.

Growth without unit economics is a trap. The venture-funded D2C generation often raised on the assumption that scale would deliver unit economics later. Several categories never reached the inflection point because the cost structure was wrong from the beginning. The unit economics question should be answered before scale, not in spite of scale.

Inventory needs a hedging instinct. Holding inventory is taking a position on future demand. The platforms that built inventory planning, demand forecasting, and discount management as core disciplines absorbed inventory risk better than those that treated inventory as procurement.

Also Read: Same failure, better clothes: Matchmade.io on selling Indonesian finance tech in Singapore

Operational systems must scale before volume scales. The institutions that survived the volume ramp had invested in operational infrastructure before the volume arrived. The ones that scaled volume first and operations second produced the customer experience failures that drove churn.

Founder accountability matters more in physical businesses. In software, a founder’s bad month produces a feature delay. In inventory-heavy D2C, a founder’s bad month can produce a cash flow event that becomes an insolvency event inside a single quarter. The governance scaffolding around the founder matters more when the business has physical exposure than when it does not.

PKPU is a recovery instrument, not just a failure marker. The Indonesian PKPU framework is designed to give viable businesses a structured path to restructure. The companies that struggled most were the ones where governance and disclosure had already eroded before PKPU was filed, not the process itself.

The macro stakes

Indonesia’s D2C category will not disappear. The structural opportunity (large rising middle class, growing e-commerce infrastructure, persistent inefficiency in legacy distribution) remains real. The next generation will be more capital-disciplined, more operationally rigorous, and more humble about the difference between software-style and physical-goods-style business models.

For founders and investors looking at D2C and inventory-heavy categories in 2026, the question is no longer whether the opportunity exists. It is whether the platform has built the working capital discipline, operational infrastructure, and governance scaffolding required to convert the opportunity into a durable business, rather than into another addition to the post-mortem literature.

—

The post The working capital trap: Lessons from Indonesia’s first D2C generation appeared first on e27.

For two decades, the startup gospel was simple: find product-market fit at home, then blitzscale across borders. In 2026, much of the world appears to be rethinking the second half of that sentence.

According to HSBC’s Global Entrepreneurial Wealth Report (GEWR) 2026, the share of entrepreneurs globally who want to expand internationally fell six percentage points year-on-year to 43 per cent. Interest in domestic expansion and local mergers and acquisitions (M&A) jumped from 42 per cent to 64 per cent, making it the most popular growth strategy worldwide.

Also Read: What I have learned watching foreign tech companies build in Singapore

The backdrop is familiar. Governments want control over data, energy grids that power AI data centres, and critical tech supply chains. When cross-border deals face growing regulatory friction, buying a capability at home looks easier than building one abroad. Technology leads all sectors in domestic M&A appetite, with 69 per cent of tech entrepreneurs pursuing domestic acquisitions, followed by energy and mining (65 per cent), manufacturing (56 per cent) and electronics (54 per cent).

The most dramatic swing is in the US, where domestic acquisition intent reportedly rose from 19 per cent in 2025 to 62 per cent. A threefold jump in a single year says as much about the mood in Washington as it does about business strategy.

The ASEAN exception

Southeast Asia is moving the other way. Indonesia ranks first globally for international expansion intent, with 62 per cent of Indonesian entrepreneurs prioritising overseas growth. Thailand is second at 55 per cent and Malaysia third at 52 per cent, ahead of mainland China at 50 per cent.

This isn’t a new pattern. In last year’s edition, the top five countries where entrepreneurs were interested in international expansion were Indonesia, Malaysia, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and China. The region’s outward lean is becoming a fixture of the series rather than a one-off spike.

HSBC attributes this to regional integration and a consumer boom, projecting that private consumption across the six core ASEAN economies will grow about 8 per cent a year to reach US$5 trillion by 2035.

Before treating this as a pan-ASEAN startup stampede, though, consider who is answering the survey. The GEWR is a private banking study. In its 2025 edition, HSBC surveyed 2,939 HNW business owners with at least $2 million of investable assets; a third of the sample (956) were ultra-HNW individuals with a net worth of more than US$100 million. These are established, wealthy business owners, many of whom run family conglomerates, not seed-stage founders burning through a Series A runway. Their appetite for expansion is a useful signal, but it isn’t a startup census.

There is also a less flattering reading of Indonesia’s top ranking. Outward ambition can reflect confidence, but it can also reflect a wish to diversify away from home-market risk, currency swings and regulatory unpredictability. The survey measures intent; it cannot tell the two motives apart.

Singapore, the waiting room

Singapore, unsurprisingly, emerges as the region’s anchor. According to the report, 40 per cent of entrepreneurs globally are more likely to consider expanding into Singapore over the next 12 months, putting it level with Japan as the world’s top expansion destination.

When entrepreneurs choose where to expand, their priorities are access to advanced technology (30 per cent), a broad customer base (28 per cent), technology-friendly policies (27 per cent), professional services (26 per cent) and skilled labour (25 per cent). Singapore ranks first globally for simple and stable regulation, joint second for innovative tech policy, and third for advanced AI infrastructure. It also tops the list for multi-residency, with 9 per cent of business owners planning a residence there.

Also Read: The cross-border due diligence questions most founders cannot answer

That last figure is a reminder of what kind of report this is. A meaningful part of Singapore’s appeal to this cohort concerns where they park their families and their wealth, not just where they build companies. For a bank whose private banking business depends on precisely those flows, it is a convenient finding.

Singapore’s gravitational pull also carries costs for the rest of the region. The city-state now captures 78 per cent of SEA’s startup funding, and its stability does not make it immune to sovereignty politics. The case of Manus, which went home despite its Singapore base, showed that a Singapore address cannot always shield a company from geopolitical pressure.

The playbook, with the price tags attached

The conventional advice drawn from the data is a “dual-track” model: anchor intellectual property, treasury and fundraising in Singapore, then run localised “hub-and-spoke” operations in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam. On paper, it is sensible.

In practice, regional expansion has humbled many who tried it. e27 recently examined why Indonesian fintech’s ASEAN expansion cost more than anyone priced in, and the lessons from Matchmade.io’s attempt to sell Indonesian finance tech in Singapore were similarly sobering. Localisation remains stubbornly manual: AI is changing global expansion, but it cannot standardise local markets.

Data sovereignty is the trap most founders underestimate. Each market’s data residency rules require separate architecture, compliance and sometimes separate entities, yet Singapore firms fear data sovereignty failures while remaining underprepared.

Acquisitions offer a shortcut, since buying a local player brings its licences and distribution with it. Regional consolidators are already doing this: logistics firm Amilo has completed its fourth buyout in four years. But cross-border M&A is only as good as the homework behind it, and many startups still struggle with the due diligence questions most founders cannot answer.

Ambition is not the bottleneck

The GEWR’s headline message, that Southeast Asia is the world’s most outward-looking region while others retreat, is both true and incomplete. Ambition has never been the region’s scarce resource. Execution is: the cost of entering ten regulatory regimes, the talent to run them, and the capital to survive the years it takes.

Also Read: Why Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam are losing the AI race they think they are winning

The ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement may lower some barriers, but as e27 has noted, DEFA cuts the cost of entry while architecture sets the cost of scale.

The world’s wealthy may be turning inward, and Southeast Asia’s are heading for the door. The question is how many of them will still be abroad by the time next year’s survey comes around.

The post The world’s rich are turning inward. Southeast Asia’s entrepreneurs are packing their bags appeared first on e27.

Ask a care manager in Singapore when the workday ends and the honest answer is: some time after the last visit, once the roster is patched, the visit notes are filed and the calls to anxious families about a missed shift are done.

Homage, the Singapore-founded home care company, thinks that unglamorous back office is a business in its own right. On Wednesday it launched Esteem AI, care management software for home care, aged care and disability support providers, and set it up as a standalone regional business alongside its care services. A global rollout, the company says, will follow.

Also Read: When a slot opens, let the AI agent act – within limits

The software itself is not new. Homage built it to run its own operations in Singapore, Malaysia and Australia, and more than 50 care organisations already use it, including Home Nursing Foundation (HNF), a charity that has sent nurses into Singaporean homes since 1976. What is new is the name, the separate business line and a layer of AI agents meant to take the paperwork off care managers’ plates.

The timing is no accident. Singapore became a super-aged society this year, with more than one in five citizens aged 65 or older, and the Ministry of Health expects a million seniors by 2030. Every one of them brings care needs, and every care visit brings forms, audits and rosters.

From three tools to one record

Esteem folds client intake, rostering, workforce management, incident reporting, customer support, billing, reporting and compliance into a single system, keeping each client’s history on one record. Homage’s argument is that most agencies still run on a rostering tool, a spreadsheet and a shared inbox that were never designed to talk to one another.

The AI layer is where the launch gets its headline, and also where the fine print matters. Most of the agentic features in the release are described in the future tense. Homage says it is building agents that will draft a visit note from what a care worker recorded, suggest a replacement carer when a shift opens up based on skills, location and whether the client already knows them, chase workers whose certifications are about to lapse, and answer routine questions from families using the record, passing anything that needs judgement to a human.

How much of that runs in production today is not spelt out. What Homage does stress is the guardrail: nothing that affects a client’s care or a worker’s schedule happens without a person’s approval, and every action is logged.

“Care will always be about people,” said Gillian Tee, co-founder and CEO of Homage. “Our AI agents prepare the work, but the decisions stay with care teams, as they always have.”

Also Read: Agentic AI is Singapore’s hottest job skill, and that should worry the people it replaces

That human-in-the-loop framing fits the regional mood. Southeast Asian tech leaders are learning to trust AI agents, but not with production, and regulated sectors want someone clearly accountable when an agent acts. In care, the bigger risk is quieter than a rogue agent: an exhausted care manager approving an AI-drafted note at 10pm without reading it closely. A sign-off button is only a safeguard if people treat it as one.

Six years in the making

Homage has flagged this move for a long time. As early as 2020, it set out plans for platforms other care providers could use. Tee says the push came from inside the company. “What surprised me was that everything around the care was just as hard: the notes, the rosters, the forms, the calls to families,” she said.

The traction figures are respectable rather than spectacular. More than 90 per cent of the 50-plus organisations use Esteem as their everyday care management system, and over 300 care managers use it in an average month, roughly six per organisation. HNF, the marquee customer, runs its home personal care operations on the platform and serves more than 1,000 care recipients a month. Its CEO, Dr Christina Tiong, said the platform is especially valuable outside office hours, helping the charity deliver continuous care “without adding administrative strain”.

Homage did not disclose revenue, pricing, or how many of those organisations pay commercial rates.

There is also an awkward structural question. Homage remains a care provider, and some of the agencies it now courts as software customers compete with it for clients and carers. The release does not say how customer data will be walled off from Homage’s own care business, or whether one agency’s records will help train agents used by another. In a sector handling sensitive health information, those are the first questions a procurement team will ask.

Rivals with a head start

Esteem walks into a crowded market. In Australia, one of Homage’s own markets, Canada-based AlayaCare and homegrown ShiftCare, which claims more than 6,500 care provider businesses as users, already sell all-in-one platforms covering rostering, compliance and billing for aged care and disability providers.

At home, Homage still competes on the services side with players such as Jaga-Me. Its pitch is that Esteem was built by an operator for operators. That is a real edge if the agents deliver, and a thin one if they stay on the roadmap.

A second story for investors

The spin-out also hints at how Homage wants to be valued. Founded in 2016, the company has raised more than US$45 million, including a US$30 million (S$40 million) Series C led by Temasek-owned Sheares Healthcare in 2021, and reportedly reached financial breakeven in early 2025. Software margins look far more attractive than labour-heavy care services, and a standalone Esteem gives Homage a second story to tell.

Also Read: The hidden economics of autonomous AI agents

Its track record on expansion counsels caution. In 2020, Homage said it planned to enter five more countries within two years, and announced a push into Japan with backing from Infocom. Neither has visibly materialised, and the company’s own boilerplate now lists only Singapore and Australia as markets for its care services. “Global rollout” will need a map before it means much.

Still, the problem Esteem targets is real and growing. Southeast Asia’s next healthtech winners will be built around workflows, not just AI, and Japan, further along the ageing curve, is already turning to physical AI to keep eldercare running. If Esteem gives care managers back a few hours a week, families will feel the difference. If it mainly lets agencies do more with fewer people, carers will feel it too.

Esteem AI is available to care providers in Singapore from today.

The post Homage turns its in-house care software into a business as Singapore turns super-aged appeared first on e27.

Anyone in Singapore who has sat through a corporate health screening knows the ritual. A thick report arrives, a few numbers glow red, and the PDF is filed somewhere between a tax notice and a gym membership nobody uses. Add a smartwatch counting steps, a blood pressure monitor bought after a scare, and clinic records sitting in systems the patient never sees, and the average person ends up data-rich and insight-poor.

Genie Health, a Singapore startup co-founded by former PropertyGuru CEO Hari V. Krishnan, wants to close that gap. The company has raised US$3 million in seed funding in a round led by the Nadathur Family Office, with participation from Liminal, a Temasek-backed founders’ studio, and two unnamed healthcare leaders.

Also Read: Homage turns its in-house care software into a business as Singapore turns super-aged

Anand Nadathur, Principal of the Nadathur Family Office, joins the board.

The founding team is unusually heavy-hitting for a seed round. Krishnan led PropertyGuru’s NYSE listing and its subsequent US$1.1 billion sale to EQT, and before that ran LinkedIn’s Asia Pacific business. Co-founder and Chair Maya Hari was CEO of carbon accounting firm Terrascope and earlier led Twitter’s business in the region. Sandeep Suvarna headed international marketing at Twitch and Asia Pacific marketing at LinkedIn.

Investors are plainly backing the people as much as the product. Nadathur said his office backs founders who are “capable, committed, and aligned with our values for the long term.” What the trio does not have, at least among its co-founders, is a clinician. The two healthcare angels and the planned hiring of healthcare expertise look designed to fill that gap.

Two products, one bet

Genie Health pitches itself as a two-sided health intelligence platform. On the consumer side, the free Genie app pulls health screening reports, lab results, wearable data, connected devices and family health history into a secure “Health Locker”, then surfaces personalised insights and suggests next steps. Members, the company says, keep control of their data at all times.

On the provider side, Genie SmartCare is a clinic platform built on agentic AI, software that carries out multi-step tasks rather than simply answering questions. It engages patients around the clock, books appointments and follow-ups, and combines longitudinal health records with wearable data so care teams see a fuller picture. Providers, the company stresses, retain complete oversight.

The theory is that each side feeds the other: consumers bring data, clinics bring trust and care pathways. The new money will deepen the platform’s AI, push SmartCare into more clinics and grow product, engineering and healthcare teams in Singapore.

Also Read: Why Southeast Asia’s next healthtech winners will be built around healthcare workflows, not just AI

The demand case is real. According to the company, one in three Singapore residents lives with at least one chronic condition, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol or poor glucose control. As the population ages, primary-care teams are carrying heavier loads, and the government’s Healthier SG programme has pushed preventive care to the centre of national health policy. Investors have taken note: listed players are already testing investor appetite for Singapore’s ageing economy.

“Members tell us they have more health information than ever, but still struggle to understand what it means for them and what to do next,” Krishnan said.

The hard parts

Aggregating health data sounds simple and has humbled many who tried. The app is rarely the difficult bit; making records portable across hospitals, clinics and labs is. Much of Singapore’s clinical data sits within public healthcare clusters and national systems, so a consumer app’s insights are only as good as what users upload and what partners agree to share. As one e27 contributor argued, the future of healthcare AI isn’t more data but better context.

Then there is trust. A locker holding lab results and family history is a prized target, and Singapore remembers the 2018 SingHealth breach, which exposed the records of about 1.5 million patients. “Members retain control” is a promise that will need audits, certifications and transparent data practices behind it.

Personalised guidance also sits close to medical advice. The line between spotting a pattern in someone’s cholesterol readings and telling them what it means clinically is thin, and the Health Sciences Authority, which regulates software as a medical device, will care where Genie draws it.

On the clinic side, SmartCare’s agentic promise meets the messy reality of primary care, where bookings still live in phone calls, WhatsApp threads and front desks. Patient intake has become one of healthcare’s most important AI use cases precisely because it is so manual, but AI agents in healthcare only work when the hand-off to humans is designed carefully.

“Healthcare teams want more time to understand their patients and support them prior to and beyond the consultation, but routine administrative demands can get in the way,” Maya Hari said.

A crowded waiting room

Genie Health enters a busy field. The government’s HealthHub app already gives Singapore residents free access to public health records, appointments and Healthier SG enrolment. Telehealth players such as Doctor Anywhere and MaNaDr offer consultations alongside digital records.

On the clinic side, Zeya Health recently acquired ConnectLah to build AI booking rails, and hospitals in the region, such as this Bangkok hospital, are building agentic patient services in-house. Globally, Apple Health and Google’s Fitbit already aggregate wearable data, while US startups such as Function Health have raised large sums selling lab-driven personalised insights.

Genie’s edge, if it has one, is the two-sided design and its founders’ platform DNA. PropertyGuru, after all, was a marketplace that kept the portal free for home seekers and earned its money from agents. Genie’s consumer app is also free, which suggests clinics will foot the bill, though the company has not disclosed its business model or how many clinics are using SmartCare.

Also Read: Japan’s I.W.G raises US$1.8M to stitch Asia’s fractured medical records

That playbook could travel well. But health is not property. A misleading listing costs a buyer a wasted viewing; a misleading health nudge costs a great deal more. Krishnan’s team has proven it can build a platform people use. Its next test is building one people trust with their bodies.

The post Ex-PropertyGuru CEO’s Genie Health raises US$3M to make sense of your scattered health data appeared first on e27.

For years, the small business owner in Penang or Cebu has relied on a quiet, unspoken form of security: obscurity. Who would bother hacking a family-run online furniture store when there are banks to rob?

The logic was not wrong. Breaking in took skill, time and patience, and skilled criminals price their time like consultants. They went where the money was.

That logic died this month, and it cost about US$50 to kill it.

Also Read: Singapore Polytechnic launches CASTLE to help SMEs strengthen cyber defences

According to a report by NorForge researcher Snorre Fagerland, first reported by Reuters on 19 October, a single Chinese-speaking operator used an open-source agent platform called Cairn to break into the websites of more than 100 companies, including Deere, SharkNinja and Cummins. The agents attempted more than 1,200 sites.

The operator’s instructions ran to fewer than 100 Chinese characters. The agents did the rest, taking a little under 23 hours per successful intrusion. Fagerland estimated the whole campaign burned roughly US$5,000 in tokens, or about US$50 per break-in.

“It’s not script kiddie stuff,” Fagerland told Reuters. Quite. It is something worse: script kiddie economics with professional-grade output.

Not the giants. The middle

The headlines named the American giants because giants make headlines. The more instructive detail sits lower down. NorForge found that the busiest cluster’s typical target was an online shop with traffic of between 200,000 and 1.5 million, in the US, Canada, Japan and Australia. The goal was to plant a web shell for lasting access to shop and payment systems, to be cashed in later.

Read that profile again with Southeast Asian eyes. It describes the region’s mid-sized direct-to-consumer brands: the beauty labels, gadget resellers and fashion startups that grew up on marketplace traffic and are now building their own storefronts.

Southeast Asia wasn’t on this operator’s list. That is luck, not design. Nothing about the method is tied to geography, and an operator already working through Japanese checkout pages will not find Bahasa Indonesia or Thai ones any harder.

The structural problem is that the region’s digital economy grew faster than its defences. An ERIA study cited by Positive Technologies found that only 68.5 per cent of small businesses in ASEAN use specialised software to protect their infrastructure. Roughly three in ten have nothing beyond whatever their hosting provider bundles for free.

The plugin you updated last Thursday

If that sounds abstract, consider the other security story of the week. Between 15 and 16 October, the distribution process for Rank Math PRO, a popular WordPress SEO plugin, was compromised. Some copies of version 3.0.123 carried code capable of creating persistent access to the sites that installed them. Administrators were told to treat their websites as potentially breached and restore from clean backups.

Also Read: Southeast Asian tech leaders are learning to trust AI agents, but not with production

This is how small businesses actually get hurt. Not through elaborate zero-days, but through the chain of plugins, themes, freelance developers and forgotten admin panels that holds a typical SME website together.

The founder does not know which version of which plugin is live. The agency that built the site moved on two years ago. The admin password lives in a WhatsApp group.

AI agents are tireless at exactly this kind of work. A human attacker gets bored scanning 1,200 storefronts for a misconfigured control panel. An agent does not get bored. It does not ask for a salary either.

Enterprises get guardians, SMEs get a blog post

The industry’s response so far tells you who matters. This week Microsoft unveiled Guardian Agents, which supervise enterprise AI agents in real time and treat them as potential insider threats, with task-scoped permissions and human approval for high-impact actions.

It is sensible engineering. It also sits inside Microsoft 365 E7, which is not a product line the kuih supplier in Shah Alam is likely to be shopping in.

Meanwhile, the bill for getting it wrong keeps climbing. IBM’s 2026 Cost of a Data Breach Report put Southeast Asia’s average breach cost at a record US$4.12 million, 12 per cent higher than last year, and IBM partly blamed AI for making attacks faster and cheaper to run.

That figure comes from just 26 organisations, so treat it as a direction rather than a price tag. But the direction is unmistakable. And a small business does not need a US$4 million bill to be finished. A week of hijacked checkout pages and a few hundred leaked card numbers will do the job.

So the region is drifting into a two-tier security economy. Large companies will buy AI to fight AI. Everyone else will rely on hope and a free SSL certificate. When attack costs fall to US$50 and defence stays priced for enterprises, the gap is not technical. It is a market failure.

What a sane response looks like

Market failures are what platforms and governments are for, and three moves would matter more than another cyber-hygiene awareness campaign.

Also Read: From KYC to KYA: how AI agents are reshaping payment risk

First, push security down the stack. The marketplaces, website builders, payment gateways and cloud resellers that host Southeast Asia’s small sellers are the only players able to defend millions of merchants at once. Automatic plugin patching, default multi-factor login and alerts for exposed admin panels should be the baseline, not a premium tier. Payment providers have the clearest incentive of all: the Cairn operator was after payment systems.

Second, treat agent infrastructure as a loaded weapon left on the table. NorForge saw this campaign only because operators had left their Cairn control panels open on the internet, and those panels leaked hundreds of credentials and API keys belonging to victims. Hosting providers in the region should scan for and take down malicious orchestration panels as routinely as they remove phishing pages.

Third, hold the AI labs to account for where their tools end up. NorForge’s data showed tasks running on a worker labelled after Anthropic’s Claude Code and DeepSeek’s low-cost V4.1 Flash model, though the firm offered that as a reading of the label, not a confirmed stack. Whatever the precise combination, model providers selling into ASEAN should publish regional abuse data and fund defensive tools for the small companies their products are now being turned against. Regulators signing AI safety agreements with these labs should be asking for exactly that.

Obscurity was never a strategy

Southeast Asian founders have long been told that cybersecurity is a cost centre to sort out after product-market fit. That advice assumed attackers were scarce and expensive. They are now neither.

The uncomfortable lesson of the Cairn campaign is not that one hacker got into Deere. It is that one hacker, armed with a few thousand dollars of tokens and a sentence of instructions, could plausibly work through every mid-sized online shop in Jakarta while asleep.

Also Read: The new ransomware playbook: Why ASEAN banks are losing the disclosure war

The region’s small businesses were never safe because they were hidden. They were safe because they were not worth the effort.

At US$50 a door, everyone is worth the effort.

The post AI agents broke into 100 firms for pocket change. SEA’s online shops fit the target profile appeared first on e27.

In February 2026, Sea Limited struck a partnership with Google on “agentic shopping prototypes.” By June, Shopee had become the first Southeast Asian e-commerce platform built directly into ChatGPT, live across Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan and Vietnam. Lazada, meanwhile, built its own AI shopping agent, Lazzie, running on Alibaba’s Qwen model, and credits it with a measurable lift in engagement during flagship sales events.

Two of the region’s biggest commerce platforms have quietly redefined who, or what, the customer actually is.

The customer might not be a person anymore

For two decades, selling online in Southeast Asia meant winning a person’s attention: a good photo, a fair price, a five-star review a shopper could read for themselves. Increasingly, it means winning an algorithm’s judgment instead. When a shopper asks ChatGPT to find “a good baby stroller under SG$150 (US$117),” it is the agent that reads the listings, compares the options and applies whatever criteria it was built with. Only the winner it picks ever reaches the human.

Consumers seem ready for exactly this handoff, in precisely the categories Southeast Asia’s small sellers depend on most. A June 2026 Checkout.com study of consumer and merchant readiness found shoppers are most comfortable delegating grocery shopping (41 per cent) and household supplies (31 per cent) to an AI agent, the bread-and-butter categories for millions of small Shopee and Lazada sellers, while trust drops sharply for higher-stakes categories like financial services (15 per cent). The same study found 89 per cent of merchants are already preparing for agentic commerce, even though only 3 per cent of transactions today actually involve an AI agent. Readiness is running well ahead of reality, which is usually when the ground shifts fastest.

Also Read: Southeast Asian tech leaders are learning to trust AI agents, but not with production

Selling to an algorithm nobody can audit

Here is the uncomfortable part for the region’s small sellers: nobody outside Shopee, Lazada, OpenAI and Alibaba can see how these agents actually decide what to surface. A merchant can optimise a listing for a human eye, with better photos, clearer copy, faster replies, because a human’s attention is at least partly legible. An AI agent’s ranking logic is not published, is not stable, and is not something a small seller has any real way to contest if it quietly stops recommending their shop.

The market is not waiting for sellers to catch up. The global AI shopping assistant category is projected to grow from roughly US$4.2 billion in 2025 to US$22.1 billion by 2032, and in Southeast Asia, AI recommendations are already estimated to influence 90 per cent of purchase decisions, with 80 per cent of shoppers engaging these tools weekly. That is not a future scenario. It is the market Southeast Asia’s sellers are already operating inside.

To be fair, this is not a story of platforms acting in bad faith. Shopee’s OpenAI partnership includes ChatGPT for Business trials for eligible sellers, meant to help them write listings, marketing copy and automate customer service. That help matters, but it addresses the seller’s side of the conversation, not the agent’s decision logic on the other end of it.

Even consumers, who stand to gain the most convenience, are not handing over full control: Checkout.com’s respondents wanted spending caps, instant revocation and easy cancellation before they would trust an agent to buy on their behalf, and on average would only let one spend around £177 (US$237) without asking first. If shoppers are this cautious about what an agent can do with their own money, sellers are entitled to at least the same caution about what an agent can do to their livelihood.

Also Read: The hidden economics of autonomous AI agents

The capital isn’t going where the sellers need it

It would help if the region’s AI investment boom were flowing toward the unglamorous work of making these systems legible to the small businesses that now depend on them. Mostly, it isn’t. Southeast Asia’s native AI startups raised a record US$4.1 billion in the first seven months of 2026, more than double all of 2025, but roughly 68 per cent of that sits in a single transaction, Kling AI’s US$2.8 billion round for its generative-video platform. Strip that one deal out and regional AI funding is closer to US$1.3 billion, concentrated in infrastructure and foundation models, not in tools that would let a small seller understand why an agent stopped recommending their stall.

I did not train as an engineer. I trained as a paramedic, then taught myself to build software because I wanted ordinary people, not only institutions, to have a fair shot at seeing what’s coming before it arrives, an instinct that eventually carried me from self-taught builder to founder and, later, to a board and product-architecture role at a Singapore culture-tech venture. That background is why this particular shift concerns me more than most AI headlines do. The risk was never that AI agents would simply replace shoppers. It’s that they already have, in exactly the categories where the region’s smallest sellers make their living, and almost nobody has given those sellers a way to see, question, or appeal what the agent decided.

Southeast Asia spent a decade teaching hundreds of thousands of small sellers how to win over a customer. It now owes them a fair shot at winning over the algorithm that has quietly taken that customer’s place.

—

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. You can also share your perspective by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of e27.

Join us on WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, X, and LinkedIn to stay connected.

The post Southeast Asia’s sellers spent a decade learning to sell to people. Now they have to sell to AI appeared first on e27.