It begins with a silence that lasts a few seconds too long. You have finished the presentation, the growth charts are still glowing on the screen, and the room feels electric until the questions shift from your vision to your vitals. The moment the due diligence team enters the room, the atmosphere of a venture changes.

For months, the leader has lived in a world of the pitch, which is a place where traction curves and the sheer force of personality carry the day. But when the professional cheque-writers arrive, whether they are private investors, VCs, or institutional capital allocators, the music stops. They are no longer listening to the story because they are looking for the scaffolding.

Now, let us be real about the ground reality. These allocators are not looking for perfection. In the high-growth corridors of Southeast Asia, we have all seen startups with messy back offices and established family firms with manual ledgers get funded. You do not need a pristine, corporate-ready headquarters to clear a growth round. If an allocator waited for every business in Jakarta or Ho Chi Minh City to have a flawless balance sheet, the region’s capital would never be deployed.

But there is a line. There is a specific kind of mess that an investor will forgive, and there is a specific kind of rot that makes a professional allocator run for the exit. The rejection that follows is not about the product or the history. Instead, it is about operational literacy, which is the invisible chasm between having a business and being a fundable asset.

The standard of evidence

To many founders and established business owners, the term Professional is mistaken for a fancy title. In reality, in the world of private equity and institutional capital, professionalism is a standard of control. Whether it is a solo angel investor or a regional trust, the allocator is not just buying your future cash flow. They are buying the assurance that the business is not held together by your personal hustle alone.

If a venture, whether it is a software firm or a manufacturing plant, relies entirely on the owner being in every WhatsApp group and approving every single expense to stay upright, it is not a venture. It is a solo act. A fundable business is a structure that survives the person.

A funding audit is not a test of how pretty your folders are. It is a test to see if you have built a machine or merely a high-growth hobby that is one owner-burnout away from collapse. When an allocator looks at your books, they are not looking for a strict teacher to grade your homework. They are looking for the exit. If the business cannot function without the owner’s daily manual intervention, there is no exit and therefore no deal.

Also Read: In Southeast Asia, cybersecurity is booming but funding is not

The ghost in the machine

High-growth ventures often mistake early-stage validation for readiness. I have watched multi-million dollar cheques, cheques that were practically signed, vaporise in real-time because of what I call the ghost founder syndrome. This happens when a co-founder who left a year ago still sits on 20 per cent of the cap table with no vesting schedule or legal exit in place.

You might think that because you are growing at 30 per cent month-on-month, the cap table does not matter. To a professional investor or a fund allocator, that is not just a messy detail. It is a legal time bomb. They see a future where that ghost returns to claim a piece of a success they did not build, or worse, holds a future acquisition hostage. Under institutional scrutiny, messy is fine, but legally compromised is a dead end. They cannot deploy capital into a house where the title deed is in question.

The transparency wall for established players

For the traditional, established firm, the wall is often built out of history. These businesses are frequently bank-ready, meaning they have the collateral to secure a loan. But they are almost never investor-ready. A bank cares about your past and your physical assets, while a strategic allocator cares about your governance and your future scalability.

Consider a family-run firm that has dominated its local route for twenty years. They might miss a massive buyout offer or a strategic merger simply because their financial ledger looks like a household diary. Their scar tissue, such as years of tax optimisation and informal supplier deals, becomes a structural risk. It is not that the business is not profitable. It is that the profit is not verifiable. Their history becomes the weight that sinks the deal because an external allocator cannot trust a black box.

The audit of non-dilutive capital

The trap is even more dangerous when seeking non-dilutive capital, such as government-backed grants or venture debt. Founders often assume that because they are not selling a piece of the company, the capital audit will be softer. The opposite is true. I recently saw an established player fail to secure a significant impact grant, not because they did not have the impact, but because they lacked capital efficiency tracking.

The allocator required a granular trail of how every dollar of non-dilutive funds would be segregated and audited. The venture was used to a one big bucket approach to their bank account and could not provide it. Whether it is equity or debt, professional capital requires a level of measurement rigour that most ventures only start building when it is already too late.

Also Read: The cold logic of the angel: Stop funding dreams, start funding plumbing

The scaffolding of a deal

To pass the audit, a leader must stop thinking like a manager and start thinking like an architect. This begins with structural sovereignty, which is the clean ownership of your intellectual property and legal rights. If your core brand is trapped in a local entity that cannot be legally transferred or audited, you are effectively unfundable.

This must be paired with operational discipline. You do not need perfection, but you do need a trail of evidence. Documentation is the physical proof of your integrity. When an allocator asks a question about your unit economics, and you have to get back to them in a week while you scramble to update a spreadsheet, you have already lost the room. A thorough funding audit is not looking for a stamp from a global firm. It is looking for control.

Architecting the future

The transition from asking for a cheque to architecting capital is the ultimate competitive advantage in the modern economy. The Southeast Asian ecosystem is no longer starving for ideas. It is starving for system literacy.

The founders and established owners who will own the next decade are those who understand that institutional scrutiny is not a hurdle to be cleared. It is the blueprint for the business itself. It is time to stop pitching the dream and start building the structures that both investors and institutional allocators can actually trust.

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When enterprises plan expansion across the Asia Pacific, connectivity is rarely treated as a strategic decision. It is assumed to be available, stable, and good enough to support daily operations. That assumption is increasingly costly.

Recent regional research shows that more than 30 per cent of organisations in APAC say inadequate network connectivity is actively threatening their growth plans. Nearly 44 per cent report that network limitations are restricting their ability to scale core initiatives such as cloud, data, and AI deployments. These are not edge cases. They signal that connectivity has shifted from a background utility to a critical operational dependency.

Yet many enterprises only realise this after expansion is underway.

Why APAC exposes the problem earlier

APAC is one of the most operationally fragmented regions in the world. Network quality, carrier behaviour, roaming performance, and access reliability vary widely across countries and, in some cases, within cities. For enterprises operating across multiple markets, this creates conditions where assumptions are tested immediately. 

Consider a regional enterprise team rolling out a new workflow across Singapore, Indonesia, and Thailand. On paper, the process is identical. The tools are the same. The timelines are aligned. On day one, however, execution begins to diverge. Team members in one market access systems without issue, while others experience intermittent connectivity, delayed authentication, or partial access to critical tools. Work still gets done, but not in the same way or at the same speed.

Connectivity is exercised from the first moment of execution. Employees land and need access. Systems activate. Customers interact in real time. When access behaves differently than expected, teams adapt quickly to keep work moving. 

What makes this challenging is not severity, but frequency. These are rarely full outages. They are short interruptions, inconsistent performance, or partial access that do not justify escalation on their own. Over time, teams build informal workarounds. Meetings start later. Tasks are deferred. Processes vary by market. Execution appears intact, but consistency quietly erodes.

This pattern is not anecdotal. It is increasingly visible in enterprise data.

Also Read: How eSIM can cut costs, boost CX, and simplify global operations for APAC startups

Quiet failure is a documented enterprise risk

Industry research consistently shows that network and connectivity issues account for a significant share of unplanned IT incidents, with the average cost of downtime running into thousands of dollars per minute for large organisations. In APAC specifically, more than half of surveyed enterprises report multi-million-dollar revenue losses linked to network outages or poor connectivity performance. 

However, the more common impact is not headline-grabbing outages. It is operational drag. 

The risk for enterprises is that this drag rarely appears in formal reporting. Quiet failure does not trigger outage alerts or incident reviews. Performance metrics often remain within acceptable thresholds even as execution consistency degrades across markets. What looks like normal variance at a regional level is often the cumulative effect of access issues that were never designed for or owned. 

This is why connectivity issues are often detected late. By the time leadership sees inconsistent performance across markets or slower decision cycles, the behaviour has already normalised, making the root cause harder to identify and correct.

The planning gap that enterprises underestimate

Most enterprise planning frameworks assume that connectivity will be broadly consistent across markets. Risk assessments focus on regulation, supply chains, talent, and cost. Access is treated as an environmental constant, even though tools such as eSIM already exist to manage connectivity variability more deliberately across regions.

APAC challenges that assumption. Fragmentation means connectivity behaves as a variable, not a given. When this variable is not explicitly accounted for, execution gaps appear early and compound quietly. 

This is not a technology problem. It is a planning problem. 

Enterprises design processes that depend on continuous access without stress-testing how those processes behave under uneven conditions. When access falters, execution does not fail loudly. It bends. 

Also Read: The impact of eSIM on international roaming and travel

Why connectivity shapes execution before other factors 

Other expansion challenges emerge gradually. Pricing models can be adjusted. Regulatory gaps surface over time. Localisation issues are identified through feedback cycles. Connectivity does not offer that margin for correction.

Connectivity is immediate. There is no grace period. Every workflow depends on it from day one. 

Because of this, connectivity becomes the first operational dependency to reveal flawed assumptions. In APAC, that revelation happens faster due to fragmentation. In more uniform regions, it may take longer, but the underlying dynamic is the same. 

What APAC teaches global enterprises 

APAC does not create this risk. It exposes it. 

As enterprises become more distributed and mobile, execution increasingly depends on continuous access across locations, devices, and teams. Connectivity is no longer peripheral to operations. It shapes how work flows, how decisions are made, and how consistently processes perform across markets. 

The takeaway for enterprise leaders is not about adopting a specific technology. It is about recognising connectivity as an operational variable that must be designed for, not assumed away. In practice, this is why enterprises are increasingly looking at approaches such as eSIM, not as a travel feature, but as a way to introduce greater predictability into how connectivity behaves across markets.

In APAC, businesses feel the impact first because the region accelerates the gap between planning and reality. Enterprises that acknowledge this early avoid quiet failure, becoming standard practice. Those who do not often discover the issue later, when inconsistency has already taken root.

—

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Sea Limited is deepening its relationship with Google, signing a memorandum of understanding to advance AI across Shopee (commerce), Garena (gaming), and Monee (digital financial services).

While the announcement reads like a standard partnership update, the specific areas named (agentic commerce, agentic payments, and AI-assisted game operations) signal something more pointed: both companies want AI systems that don’t just recommend, but act.

That distinction matters. Most consumer AI in 2024-2025 was about chat and content. “Agentic” systems are about execution: software that can navigate interfaces, compare options, apply rules, and complete transactions with minimal human input. Done well, it removes friction.

Poorly done, it becomes an expensive layer of confusion, or worse, a security liability.

Also Read: Agentic AI is powerful – but power isn’t product-market fit

This expanded partnership builds on existing Sea-Google collaborations, such as the YouTube Shopping Affiliate Program with Shopee and Free Fire League on Google Play with Garena. The new element is explicit: Sea wants to operationalise AI at scale across its ecosystem, and Google wants distribution in some of the world’s most mobile-first markets.

Forrest Li, Sea’s Chairman and CEO, framed it as the next platform shift:
“At Sea, we have always believed in the fundamental power of technology to improve lives and create long-lasting value for the communities we serve.

AI is the next big technology revolution, and we believe that it has huge potential to positively transform our business and create value in our markets. This partnership with Google on AI will drive innovation in the business application of the technology at scale, and allow us to make AI more accessible to the digitally underserved in our markets,” Li added.

Google APAC President Sanjay Gupta struck a similar tone. “By combining Google’s AI leadership with Sea’s innovative ecosystem, we’re building products that don’t just solve today’s challenges but define the future of gaming, commerce, and financial services. And we’re developing these solutions responsibly, with user privacy and safety at the core. Together, we are accelerating the adoption of this transformative technology and unlocking the immense economic potential of Southeast Asia’s digital landscape.”

The real story is what “agentic” implies for shoppers, gamers, and people who still sit on the edge of formal finance.

1) AI-powered agents and the future of online shopping: from browsing to delegation

Shopee and Google say they will “jointly explore the building of an AI agentic shopping prototype” that “can seamlessly integrate across Shopee and Google platforms”.

If that prototype becomes a product, it could shift online shopping from search-and-scroll to goal-driven delegation. Instead of a user typing keywords, filtering, opening ten tabs, checking delivery dates, and messaging sellers, an agent could:

• Translate a vague intent (“cheap, reliable phone for my mum”) into specific constraints
• Compare sellers, shipping times, warranty terms, and return policies
• Watch prices over time, alert on drops, and execute purchases within a budget
• Bundle items to optimise shipping or apply the proper vouchers automatically
• Handle post-purchase steps: tracking, rescheduling delivery, filing returns

Southeast Asia is an unusually fertile market for this because commerce is already messy in the real world: multiple languages, informal sellers, heavy promotion mechanics, and a wide range of logistics reliability. An agent that can actually navigate those trade-offs could become the new front door to shopping.

Also Read: Why agentic AI isn’t what the hype suggests

But it also raises uncomfortable questions. Who does the agent really serve — buyer, seller, or platform margin? If an AI agent becomes the shopping interface, then ranking, sponsored placements, and “recommended” choices become even more consequential. Platforms will need to show that agents are not simply optimised to maximise take rate while wearing a friendly chatbot mask.

2) AI innovation in gaming: not just smarter NPCs, but faster live ops and globalisation

On the gaming side, Garena and Google are looking to use Google’s AI solutions to “enhance gamer experiences” and “transform the productivity of game development and operations”, with a line about early access pilots for Google’s latest AI research.

The obvious consumer-facing play is richer worlds: better non-player characters, more adaptive matchmaking, personalised onboarding, and dynamic content. The less glamorous—but likely more valuable—angle is operations:

• Faster content production (assets, localisation, event scripting) to keep live-service titles fresh
• Better moderation and trust-and-safety tooling for voice and chat, where toxicity kills communities
• Anti-cheat systems that can detect novel patterns rather than just known signatures
• Smarter A/B testing loops that tune difficulty and retention without breaking fairness

If Garena can shorten content cycles and improve trust and safety, it can scale globally with less operational drag. That matters because “global gaming experience” is often less about graphics and more about whether a game feels fair, stable, and culturally native in Bangkok, Manila, São Paulo, and Riyadh at the same time.

There’s a catch: generative tooling can also turbocharge bad actors—cheat creation, scams, and automated harassment. Any AI advantage in gaming will be matched by AI-powered abuse, and publishers will have to budget for that arms race.

3) AI and financial inclusion: fewer forms, more approvals, but also new kinds of exclusion

Sea’s financial arm, Monee, will work with Google on an “open, shared Agent Payments Protocol (AP2)”, where Monee will provide feedback to ensure it is “robust, secure, and suitable” for Southeast Asia, with an intention to later explore pilot experiences across platforms.

If AP2 evolves into something widely adopted, it could reduce one of the biggest blockers to financial inclusion: complexity. Many underbanked users don’t struggle with the idea of digital money; they struggle with onboarding steps, confusing user interfaces, and customer support that doesn’t speak their language or understand their context.

AI could help by:

• Turning onboarding into a guided, multilingual flow that adapts to user capability
• Automating dispute handling and customer service at lower cost
• Improving fraud detection to protect first-time users (who are prime scam targets)
• Enabling small merchants to accept digital payments and reconcile accounts without accounting expertise

For SMEs, inclusion is not philosophical; it is operational. If agents can reconcile transactions, chase invoices, or manage cashflow nudges, that’s not “AI magic”; it is time returned to a shop owner.

Still, AI-driven finance comes with a risk the industry often underplays: automated denial. Models can quietly exclude people with thin files, unstable device histories, or non-standard income patterns; the exact users inclusion efforts claim to prioritise. Any “agentic payments” system that touches identity, fraud, or credit will need strong controls, auditability, and clear recourse when automation gets it wrong.

Also Read: Agentic AI: The next frontier in technology

Sea and Google are calling this partnership “strategic”. The test will be whether these projects become everyday tools that work in the region’s real conditions: inconsistent connectivity, diverse languages, scam-heavy environments, and users who will not tolerate extra steps just because the system is “smart”. Agentic AI only wins if it makes life simpler — and doesn’t create a new category of problems that humans then have to clean up.

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As Ramadan retail continues to evolve across Southeast Asia, brands are being urged to rethink how they plan, activate and optimise campaigns during the holy month. New insights from Criteo’s analysis of Ramadan 2025 reveal that shoppers are starting earlier, taking longer to decide and converting closer to peak festive moments–a behavioural shift that will intensify as Ramadan and Chinese New Year converge in 2026.

Retail sales across Southeast Asia rose 13 per cent year-on-year during Ramadan 2025, underlining the growing commercial significance of the season. Yet the headline growth masks a deeper transformation in consumer behaviour. For purchases made in the final two weeks of Ramadan, the average time between a shopper’s first product visit and completed purchase stretched to 19 days, with some journeys extending beyond 50 days.

Early discovery, however, did not eliminate late conversion. Indonesia recorded a 35 per cent uplift in retail sales during the last two weeks of Ramadan, peaking at 57 per cent on March 16. Malaysia saw sales climb 26 per cent, with a 52 per cent peak on March 23. Singapore’s sales pattern was more stable, reflecting its diversified retail calendar.

The takeaway for Ramadan retail strategies is clear: shoppers are browsing earlier but still buying closer to Eid.

“Ramadan 2025 underscored a fundamental shift in how consumers plan and purchase–discovery is happening earlier, and shopping journeys are becoming increasingly fluid across channels,” said Sukesh Singh, managing director, Southeast Asia at Criteo.

“As festive moments begin to overlap, this behaviour will only accelerate. At Criteo, our AI-powered intelligence helps brands identify the right audiences at the right time and place, adding relevance across touchpoints and strengthening full-funnel, cross-channel outcomes. Brands that anticipate demand and stay relevant across the entire journey will be far better positioned to earn attention that drives higher conversion.”

Also Read: AI shopping adoption surges 39 per cent in APAC, fueling retail tech investments

Preparing for a more compressed festive calendar

With Chinese New Year and Ramadan set to fall in the same week in 2026, businesses face a tighter and more competitive festive window. Criteo’s advice to brands centres on five strategic shifts:

Plan Ramadan as a multi-stage season

Ramadan retail can no longer be treated as a short, promotion-led sprint. With discovery beginning weeks ahead of purchase while conversion clusters around peak moments, brands must structure campaigns in phases. Early weeks should focus on awareness and consideration, capturing shoppers during research and comparison. As Eid approaches, messaging should pivot towards urgency, promotions and conversion-led tactics.

Prepare for demand compression

The convergence of major cultural moments is likely to compress demand into shorter timeframes. Shorter decision windows and heightened competition mean brands must be ready for sharper spikes in traffic and transactions. Budgets, inventory and activation plans should be flexible enough to scale quickly during high-intent moments, rather than being distributed evenly across the month.

Align with cultural and daily rhythms

Ramadan retail activity closely follows daily routines. While afternoons generate the highest overall sales, the largest uplift compared with pre-Ramadan levels occurs during Suhoor. In Indonesia, this surge is most pronounced between 3 AM and 5 AM, while in Malaysia it shifts later, between 4 AM and 7 AM. Campaign timing, creative and offers that reflect these culturally relevant windows can significantly improve engagement and conversion.

Also Read: Multimodal AI: Reshaping search and discovery in retail and travel

Design for non-linear purchase journeys

Ramadan 2025 demonstrated that there is no single path to purchase. Some consumers act quickly on high intent, while others deliberate for weeks. Brands must maintain visibility across multiple touchpoints, from early discovery to final checkout, adapting messaging as intent strengthens. Retail media becomes particularly valuable closer to purchase moments, where intent signals are clearer and performance outcomes are easier to measure.

Rely on data-led optimisation and automation

As festive calendars grow more crowded, static campaign plans struggle to keep pace. Data-driven optimisation and automation enable brands to anticipate demand peaks, detect emerging intent signals and adjust spend, messaging and targeting in real time. This shift towards more adaptive, AI-supported execution allows Ramadan retail campaigns to move from reactive planning to continuous optimisation.

For businesses across Southeast Asia, the message is unequivocal. Ramadan retail is expanding in scale and complexity. Success will not hinge solely on promotional intensity in the final days before Eid, but on sustained relevance throughout a longer, more fluid shopper journey. Brands that anticipate demand, respect cultural rhythms and harness data intelligently will be best placed to win attention — and sales — in the seasons ahead.

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Image Credit: Rauf Alvi on Unsplash

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At the start of 2025, speed felt like the only answer. Faster growth. Faster launches. Faster decisions. Like many founders, I believed momentum was something you either kept feeding or risked losing entirely. In hindsight, that belief shaped several decisions I wouldn’t make again today.

One of the biggest was expanding capacity before demand had fully stabilised. We hired ahead of confirmed pipelines, stretched teams across regions, and said yes to opportunities that looked good on paper but came with hidden complexity. At the time, it felt like the responsible thing to do was to prepare for growth before it arrived. But what I didn’t fully appreciate was how fragile early momentum can be when it isn’t supported by repeatable systems.

The cost wasn’t just financial. It showed up in scattered focus, stretched leadership bandwidth, and teams that were busy but not always effective. Growth happened, but it wasn’t clean. And some of it didn’t age well.

Another lesson came from the metrics we chose to celebrate. In 2025, we tracked volume obsessively, such as the number of leads, the number of projects, and the number of touchpoints. It felt reassuring to see activity increase. But over time, I realised we were mistaking motion for progress. We were moving fast, but not always in the right direction.

What we didn’t pay enough attention to were quieter indicators: operational strain, client fit, team energy, and the effort required to maintain momentum. Those didn’t show up neatly on dashboards, but they told a much more accurate story about sustainability. By the time we acknowledged them, some damage had already been done.

Also Read: Why Asian startups should focus on Southeast Asia in 2026

As budgets tightened towards the end of the year, reality forced a reset. We had to get sharper about how we spent, who we hired, and what we built. That constraint, uncomfortable as it was, became a turning point.

We stopped defaulting to headcount as a solution. Instead of asking who else we needed, we asked what we could simplify. We questioned whether a feature actually solved a problem or just made us feel innovative. We rewrote processes that had grown bloated under pressure and slowly, clarity returned.

Slowing down revealed things that rapid scaling had hidden. It exposed inefficiencies we had been compensating for with effort. It highlighted roles that lacked clear ownership. It showed where culture had been diluted by speed rather than strengthened by intention.

Most importantly, it reminded me that growth without coherence is not progress, but it is postponement. You can delay reckoning by moving fast, but eventually the business asks harder questions.

Going into 2026, my priorities look very different. I’m less interested in how quickly something can scale and more interested in whether it can be repeated without exhaustion. I think more about resilience than reach. I ask whether a decision gives us optionality or locks us into constant acceleration.

Also Read: Why the tech world is heading to Hong Kong in April 2026

If I were optimising purely for sustainability now, I’d do a few things differently. I’d build fewer things, but build them properly. I’d hire later, but onboard better. I’d choose clients and partners more carefully, even if it meant slower revenue in the short term. And I’d pay closer attention to the signals that don’t scream for attention because those are often the ones that matter most.

2025 wasn’t a failure. It was a necessary stress test. It showed me where ambition had outpaced structure and where optimism had overridden discipline. But it also clarified what kind of founder I want to be going forward.

I don’t want to build businesses that only work when everything goes right. I want to build ones that can withstand uncertainty, fatigue, and change. Ones that leave room for people to think, not just react. Ones that grow because they’re solid, not because they’re sprinting.

The market has matured. Expectations have shifted. And maybe that’s a good thing. Because sustainability isn’t about doing less, but it’s about doing what matters, for longer.

If there’s one question I’m carrying into 2026, it’s this. If growth stopped tomorrow, would what we’ve built still be worth sustaining?

That answer matters more to me now than any headline number ever did.

—

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Every founder knows this moment. You log into your marketing dashboard, and it feels like you’re staring into a maze. A maze built with your own tools. The marketing technology landscape keeps expanding, yet most teams still struggle to turn those tools into real growth.

In my years working with startups and scaling marketing engines, I’ve seen the same pattern again and again. Small teams drown in tool sprawl, spend more time managing dashboards than driving demand, and fail to build the visibility they need to scale. Much of what they pay for simply goes unused because the stack is fragmented and disconnected.

For early-stage startups, this isn’t just inefficiency. It is a lost runway. Every hour spent toggling between tools is an hour not spent creating meaningful customer experiences or validating product-market fit. In this article, I will break down what a lean AI marketing stack should look like, how to build it first, and why fewer, smarter systems consistently outperform bloated setups when every resource counts.

What lean AI marketing really means for early teams

Lean AI marketing starts with a simple shift in mindset. Early teams do not need more tools or heavier automation. They need a system that helps a small group execute meaningful work consistently without operational drag.

At this stage, marketing responsibilities are straightforward but demanding. Founders and small teams are expected to wear multiple hats every day. The focus should stay on the few activities that directly influence growth:

• Understand what customers are searching for, asking, and comparing
• Create useful, trustworthy content that answers those needs
• Show up where buyers discover solutions, across search and AI-driven channels
• Distribute consistently without manual repetition
• Measure the signals that connect marketing efforts to revenue

AI works best when it supports these fundamentals quietly in the background. The right stack reduces repetitive tasks, connects workflows, and keeps research, content, and visibility moving together as one system.

With that foundation in place, marketing feels lighter, faster, and more predictable. And for startups, the team that ships consistently is usually the team that pulls ahead.

Also Read: Is your business stuck in manual mode? It’s time to automate with AI

The five core jobs every startup must solve first

Once you strip away the noise, startup marketing comes down to a handful of repeatable jobs. Get these right, and growth compounds. Miss them, and no tool stack can compensate.

• Customer research: Identify what your audience is searching, comparing, and struggling with so messaging aligns with real demand.
• Content creation: Publish helpful, high-intent content that answers questions and builds trust at every stage of the buyer journey.
• Visibility across search and AI discovery: Ensure your brand appears consistently in Google results, AI answers, and emerging generative engines where decisions are increasingly shaped.
• Distribution and repurposing: Extend the life of every asset across channels without recreating work from scratch.
• Measurement and optimisation: Track what influences pipeline and revenue, so effort flows toward what actually drives growth.

Everything in a lean AI stack should support these five jobs. If a tool doesn’t make one of them faster or easier, it’s likely adding noise.

The lean AI marketing stack blueprint

Once these five jobs are clear, the stack becomes easier to design. Instead of collecting tools randomly, map each tool to a specific outcome. Every layer should remove manual effort and help a small team move faster with fewer handoffs.

Many early teams try to solve each row with a separate tool. Over time, that creates fragmented workflows and rising costs. Increasingly, startups are consolidating these functions into unified AI platforms that handle multiple jobs in one place, keeping the stack lean and easier to manage.

Also Read: AI is making wealth management feel like concierge service

How should startups build a lean AI marketing stack step by step?

A lean stack works best when built in layers. Trying to set up everything at once usually leads to tool overload, scattered workflows, and stalled execution. A phased approach keeps the team focused and shows results faster.

• Step 1: Start with the customer and search insight. Understand what your audience is actively searching, comparing, and asking. Ground every decision in real demand so your content has direction from day one.
• Step 2: Build a consistent content engine. Set up AI-assisted workflows to draft, optimise, and publish regularly. Consistency creates momentum and compounds visibility over time.
• Step 3: Optimise for discovery. Structure content for both search engines and AI-driven answers. Strong visibility reduces dependence on paid acquisition.
• Step 4: Automate distribution. Repurpose each asset into multiple formats and channels so one piece of work delivers wider reach.
• Step 5: Measure and refine continuously. Track what drives traffic, leads, and pipeline. Reinvest in what performs and eliminate what doesn’t.

Done in this order, marketing stays manageable, measurable, and scalable for even the smallest teams.

Common mistakes to avoid when building your AI marketing stack

Even strong teams lose momentum when the stack grows faster than their strategy. A few early missteps can quietly drain time, budget, and focus.

• Adding tools before defining outcomes: Software should support a clear job. Without that clarity, dashboards multiply, but results don’t.
• Chasing every new AI trend: Not every feature needs adoption. Stability and consistency usually outperform constant experimentation.
• Publishing without a visibility plan: Content that isn’t optimised for search or AI discovery rarely gets seen, no matter how well written it is.
• Working in disconnected systems: Copying data between platforms slows execution and creates avoidable errors.
• Measuring vanity metrics: Traffic and impressions mean little if they don’t translate into leads or pipeline.

A lean stack stays focused, simple, and tied directly to growth.

Build for focus, not complexity

Early-stage startups don’t win with bigger stacks. They win with clearer priorities and faster execution.

When customer insight, content, visibility, and measurement work together smoothly, marketing stops feeling chaotic and starts feeling predictable. Progress compounds. Teams ship more. Decisions get easier.

AI should support that rhythm quietly in the background, reducing manual effort and freeing time for higher-impact work. Keep the system simple. Keep the stack lean. Focus on what directly drives growth.

Because at this stage, clarity and consistency beat complexity every time.

—

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic.

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Sea Limited’s expanded partnership with Google is being framed as an AI collaboration. In reality, it is a bet on control of the interface layer of Southeast Asia’s digital economy.

The keyword is “agentic”. This is not about chatbots drafting product descriptions or auto-generating game art. It is about software that can execute — compare listings, apply vouchers, reconcile payments, moderate communities and complete transactions. In short, AI that acts on behalf of users.

If Shopee successfully deploys agentic shopping, the centre of gravity in e-commerce shifts from browsing to delegation. The platform that owns the agent owns intent. That creates enormous leverage — and scrutiny. An AI that optimises for margin rather than user value will quickly erode trust in price-sensitive markets.

For Garena, the upside lies in operational compression: faster live ops, smarter moderation and tighter anti-cheat systems. In gaming, retention is economics.

For Monee, agentic payments could simplify onboarding and fraud control — but also risk automated exclusion if governance lags.

The opportunity is clear. So is the burden. In Southeast Asia’s fragmented, mobile-first markets, AI will only scale if it reduces friction without introducing new opacity.

REGIONAL

Shopee, Garena, Monee: Sea’s AI ambition gets serious: Sea has signed an MoU with Google to scale agentic AI across Shopee, Garena and Monee, aiming to automate shopping, gaming operations and payments while improving inclusion, efficiency and user experience across Southeast Asia’s mobile-first markets.

SBI bets on Singapore to build Asia’s digital asset corridor: SBI Holdings plans to acquire a majority stake in Singapore’s Coinhako, injecting capital via SBI Ventures Asset. If approved, Coinhako becomes a consolidated subsidiary, strengthening SBI’s regulated crypto corridor ambitions across Asia.

VentureTECH invests US$7.16M in Malaysia’s Delta Spike Asia, IX Telecom: Delta Spike is a cybersecurity firm delivering end-to-end managed detection and response and full-spectrum cyber defence services across the region. IX Telecom is an emerging digital telco with service coverage in more than 200 countries and territories.

Malaysia launches initiative to accelerate AI Nation journey by 2030: The GII initiative translates real government and citizen problem statements into deployable solutions, prioritising Made by Malaysia technologies, strengthening the domestic AI ecosystem, and enabling Malaysian producers of AI and digital products to scale nationally and globally.

FEATURES & INTERVIEWS

From back office to frontline: How fraud teams became revenue drivers: Southeast Asia’s fast-payment rails have driven mass adoption of real-time digital payments, but fraud is rising just as quickly. Banks are turning to AI to reduce false declines, strengthen trust, improve compliance, and unlock revenue growth.

INTERNATIONAL

US to send AI specialists overseas to counter China: The government plans to send up to 5,000 American science and math graduates abroad over five years to promote US AI technology adoption in partner countries. The initiative aims to reduce reliance on Chinese-made technology by embedding volunteers with local organisations to support AI deployment.

Bill Gates withdraws from India AI Summit following controversy: His participation was questioned amid renewed scrutiny over his past interactions with Jeffrey Epstein. He has denied any wrongdoing, saying his contacts with Epstein involved only dinners related to philanthropy.

OpenAI, Pine Labs partner to bring AI to payments: The collaboration aims to automate workflows such as settlement, reconciliation, and invoicing, with Pine Labs embedding OpenAI’s APIs into its systems. Pine Labs, a fintech firm in India, processes over 6B transactions worth about US$126B across 20 countries.

Saudi Arabia’s Humain invests US$3B in xAI: The Saudi AI firm invested US$3B in xAI’s Series E funding round before its acquisition by SpaceX in early February 2026. The investment made HUMAIN a significant minority shareholder in xAI, with its holdings converted into SpaceX shares following the merger.

Qualcomm to invest up to US$150M in Indian startups: Qualcomm Ventures will invest in startups across all stages, focusing on AI applications in automotive, IoT, robotics, and mobile devices. Qualcomm has been active in India since 2007, supporting more than 40 startups, including Jio, MapMyIndia, and ideaForge.

Ola Electric to cut stores to 550 as sales slump deepens: The Indian EV maker previously announced a nationwide expansion to 4,000 stores but has since scaled back to 700 outlets as part of a restructuring. In its latest quarterly update, Ola Electric reported a net loss of US$53.4M, with revenue dropping 55% YoY.

CYBERSECURITY

Cyber threats are rising: Here are 25 startups fighting back: This list spotlights 25 cybersecurity startups strengthening Southeast Asia’s digital economy, spanning identity, cloud security, threat detection and compliance, as the region builds resilient, trust-first infrastructure for rapid digital growth.

Rethinking cybersecurity practices as Non-Human Identities surge: In 2026, the biggest cybersecurity risk is unmanaged access, not hackers exploiting flaws. As non-human identities outnumber employees, organisations lose visibility over APIs, service accounts and AI agents, leaving orphaned credentials vulnerable to stealthy abuse.

Phishing threats: Protecting your online shopping and banking: Online shopping and banking bring convenience but also rising cyber risks. This article highlights Indonesian fraud cases, explains phishing warning signs, and shares practical tips to protect accounts and personal data.

SEMICONDUCTOR

Ex-Google engineers charged with stealing Pixel chip secrets: Two former Google engineers and Samaneh Ghandali’s husband were indicted in the US on 14 felony counts, including conspiracy, theft of trade secrets, and evidence destruction, related to Google’s Tensor processor for Pixel phones.

OpenAI expresses confidence in chip supply despite shortages: OpenAI reports having clear visibility on its chip supply needs amid ongoing industry shortages. It is working with strategic partners who are supportive in providing access to chips, and that OpenAI remains cautious about supply chain risks.

South Korea rolls out 10,000 Nvidia GPUs for AI projects: It’s begun distributing 10,000 Nvidia GPUs to universities, research institutes, and AI projects as part of a planned supply of 260,000 units through 2030. The initiative, announced last October, aims to expand AI infrastructure across the country.

AI

Agentic AI is powerful – but power isn’t product-market fit: OpenClaw’s rise shows agentic AI is real and technically viable, but still infrastructure-first. Powerful autonomous assistants won’t achieve mass adoption without frictionless onboarding, invisible hosting, guardrails, and governance that make complex execution feel simple and safe.

The lean AI marketing stack every startup should build first: Early-stage startups often drown in fragmented marketing tools that waste time and runway. A lean AI marketing stack focuses on five core jobs — research, content, visibility, distribution, and measurement — using fewer integrated systems to drive consistent, scalable growth.

SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026 returns to spotlight AI, robotics, and urban resilience: SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026 returns April 27-29 at Tokyo Big Sight, spotlighting AI, robotics, resilience and entertainment, with 700-plus startups, global investors and expanded programmes shaping sustainable, human-centric cities worldwide.

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

APAC is not a single market, and connectivity is where most businesses feel the impact first: Enterprises expanding across APAC often assume connectivity is stable, but fragmentation exposes weaknesses early. Quiet disruptions undermine execution, slowing cloud and AI scaling and threatening growth.

Why Bitcoin fell from US$100k to mid US$60k amid macro uncertainty: Bitcoin has plunged nearly 50% from its US$100,000 peak, flashing early bear-market signals amid ETF outflows, extreme fear, derivatives stress and macro volatility, with US$60,000 support now critical.

Rethinking value in B2B services: Why real results don’t happen overnight: In B2B services, real value isn’t instant results but structured, transparent execution that builds capability, trust, and sustainable growth, shifting businesses onto clearer, system-driven trajectories beyond short-term metrics and hype.

Cruising the startup ocean: Navigating limits without slowing down: Navigating the startup world is chaotic and fast, shaped by limited resources, rapid decisions, and trust-based execution. Unlike corporates, startups thrive in uncertainty, where credibility and commitment drive progress beyond processes or perfect readiness.

Big in numbers, weak in value: The limits of MSME formalisation in Indonesia: Local MSMEs proved crucial during the 1997-1999 crisis, boosting GDP and exports despite declining numbers. Today, Indonesia hosts 65.45M MSMEs, yet many remain informal, low-productivity, and financially excluded, limiting real growth.

Financing the real economy: Why SEA needs capital that listens, not just lends: SEA’s innovation story overlooks SMEs powering the real economy. Many remain asset-rich but liquidity-poor. The solution lies in governed, trust-based financing structures designed for operational realities, resilience, and long-term impact.

Value creation: Why your best people can’t execute — and what I learned watching CEOs fail: The “three faces” theory explains identity strain in the AI era: people perform polished public selves, hide private doubts, and suppress authentic needs. Bots exploit this gap, mimicking credibility—while rigid work systems reward appearances over real execution.

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The crypto market’s modest advance of 0.51 per cent to a total capitalisation of US$2.3T over the last 24 hours represents more than a simple price fluctuation. It signals a market beginning to price in a fundamental shift in its operating environment. This move appears internally driven rather than a reflexive follow-through from traditional finance. Correlation data support this view.

The crypto market’s relationship with the S&P 500 is negligible at 0.8 per cent, while its tie to Gold is low at 15 per cent. This decoupling suggests capital is responding to crypto-specific catalysts, primarily a growing conviction that the United States regulatory landscape may finally be evolving. This moment feels familiar yet distinct. We have seen false dawns before, but the current momentum behind the CLARITY Act carries a different weight, one that markets are increasingly willing to bet on.

The primary engine of this cautious optimism is the rising likelihood that the CLARITY Act will become law. Prediction market Polymarket now reflects an 85 per cent chance of passage, a figure cited by industry leaders like Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, who points to a potential timeline by April 2026. This is not merely a political statistic. It represents a potential removal of the single greatest overhang on institutional capital allocation.

A clear legal framework does more than just provide compliance checklists. It enables the construction of long-term valuation models that investors could not build under a regime of enforcement by litigation. The market is actively discounting this reduced uncertainty.

A critical perspective remains essential. Legislative odds can shift rapidly. True progress requires watching for concrete actions: official committee markups, bipartisan statements of support, and the actual text of proposed amendments. The next few weeks will provide crucial data points to separate genuine momentum from speculative noise.

While regulatory hopes provide the macro backdrop, capital is expressing its views with notable selectivity. The broader market’s slight gain masks a clear rotation into specific narratives. The Layer 1 category advanced 0.65 per cent, outperforming the aggregate.

Within that, infrastructure and artificial intelligence tokens demonstrated significant strength. Enso posted a gain of 35.74 per cent while Allora advanced 12.9 per cent. This pattern reveals a trader psychology that is opportunistic but not yet broadly confident. Participants are seeking alpha in defined thematic buckets rather than deploying capital indiscriminately. Sentiment data corroborates this cautious stance.

Also Read: Ethereum leads fragile crypto rebound as markets navigate holiday thin liquidity

The Fear and Greed Index, while improving from a reading of 8 to 11, remains firmly in Extreme Fear territory. This combination of selective bullishness and pervasive caution defines the current tape. It suggests a market building a foundation for a potential relief rally, but one that remains vulnerable to a shift in the regulatory narrative or a broader macro shock.

The near-term technical pathway for the market hinges on two clear levels. On the upside, the total market capitalisation faces immediate resistance at the 78.6 per cent Fibonacci retracement level of US$2.35T. A sustained break above this threshold could signal a meaningful short-term trend reversal, inviting further speculative interest.

On the downside, Bitcoin’s ability to hold the US$66,000 support level is paramount. A decisive break below this price could quickly reignite the bearish sentiment that fueled the market’s 27.5 per cent decline over the past month.

These technical levels are not arbitrary. They represent the collective memory of recent price action and the current balance between buyers and sellers. Monitoring daily closes relative to the US$66,000 to US$67,000 zone for Bitcoin, alongside updates to the CLARITY Act’s legislative progress, provides a practical framework for assessing short-term direction.

The market is asking a simple question: can regulatory optimism overcome technical overhead and fragile conviction

Also Read: Crypto market bleeds US$44B as US$78M Bitcoin liquidations spark panic

This crypto-specific drama unfolds against a backdrop of traditional market stress, which further highlights the asset class’s evolving independence. Major US stock indices declined on Thursday, February 19, 2026, with the S&P 500 slipping 0.28 per cent to close at 6,861.89. The drivers were classic macro headwinds: geopolitical tensions between the US and Iran pushed oil prices higher, with Brent crude settling at US$71.66 a barrel, a six-month high.

Concurrently, concerns over private credit liquidity resurfaced after a major fund halted redemptions, sending shares of alternative asset managers such as Blackstone and Apollo Global Management down by more than five per cent. This news struck at the heart of the US$1.8T private credit market.

Even better-than-expected labour data, which showed initial jobless claims falling to 206,000, well below the forecast of 227,000, could not offset these fears. The data briefly pushed the 2-year Treasury yield to 3.468 per cent, reflecting complex investor calculations about growth and inflation.

In this environment, crypto’s low correlation is not just a statistical curiosity. It represents a potential portfolio diversification benefit that institutional investors are beginning to seriously evaluate, provided the regulatory path forward becomes clearer.

The current market posture, therefore, is one of cautious optimism anchored by a tangible, though not yet realised, reduction in regulatory risk. For those of us who believe in the long-term promise of decentralised systems, the path forward requires more than just favourable legislation. It demands building infrastructure and applications that deliver undeniable utility.

The current price action is a hopeful signal, but the real work of integrating these technologies into the global financial fabric continues, independent of daily price fluctuations or political odds. The market’s next move will be a test of whether this foundational work is beginning to be recognised and valued by a broader set of participants.

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Southeast Asia’s AI future may be decided less by flashy breakthroughs and more by a quieter battleground: cybersecurity.

That was the underlying message emerging from the ASEAN Digital Outlook and the first findings from the AI Ready ASEAN Research, launched by the ASEAN Foundation with support from Google.org at the AI Ready ASEAN: 3rd Regional Policy Convening in Manila. Together, the reports offer a snapshot of how prepared the region is for AI, not just in terms of adoption, but in governance, infrastructure and public trust.

While AI tools are spreading rapidly across ASEAN, the region’s ability to secure its digital systems is struggling to keep pace. The ASEAN Digital Outlook highlights uneven levels of digital maturity and institutional capacity across member states, warning that persistent gaps in cybersecurity preparedness and responsible technology use remain. In a region where AI is increasingly embedded in finance, education and public services, these weaknesses could become a chokepoint for AI growth.

AI’s promise in Southeast Asia (SEA) is clear: greater productivity, improved public service delivery and a new wave of digital entrepreneurship. But as AI becomes more accessible, so too does its misuse. Deepfake-enabled fraud, misinformation campaigns, and online scams are already eroding trust in digital systems, and the risks will only increase as generative AI tools become cheaper and more sophisticated.

For businesses, the implications are immediate. AI adoption requires data, and data requires security. Without stronger safeguards, companies may hesitate to deploy AI at scale, especially in regulated sectors such as banking and healthcare. In markets where cybersecurity enforcement remains uneven, cross-border companies could face higher operational risk and more fragmented compliance requirements. For startups, a major data breach or fraud incident can be fatal, particularly when investor confidence is fragile.

Also Read: While S&P 500 struggles, crypto’s low correlation to gold and stocks attracts institutional attention

For governments, the stakes are even higher. Cyberattacks targeting critical infrastructure, elections or national identity systems can quickly become regional crises. ASEAN’s interconnected economies mean vulnerabilities do not stay contained within national borders. A breach in one country can have ripple effects across digital trade networks and shared platforms.

The challenge is not simply technical. It is institutional. The reports suggest AI adoption is advancing faster than governance readiness, and that fragmented national approaches are limiting ASEAN’s ability to respond cohesively. This raises the likelihood of reactive policymaking — where regulations are introduced only after major incidents occur, potentially stifling innovation while failing to address root vulnerabilities.

Education is also a weak link. The AI Ready ASEAN Research points to a consistent gap between high AI usage and actual readiness, particularly in ethical understanding and institutional support. Students frequently emerge as early adopters of AI tools, but educators and parents report lower confidence and limited access to structured training. That imbalance matters because cybersecurity is as much about human behaviour as it is about technology. Without digital literacy and awareness, users become easy entry points for fraud and manipulation.

Yet the same findings also point to a possible advantage: ASEAN has a young, digitally active population that could be trained rapidly if the right systems are put in place. The question is whether the region can build resilience before AI-driven threats scale further.

This is where public-private collaboration becomes central to the region’s AI trajectory.

Also Read: The lean AI marketing stack every startup should build first

The involvement of Google.org signals a growing push for partnerships that can accelerate skills development and policy coordination. Private sector players are not only providing funding, but also shaping the tools and training frameworks that governments and institutions will rely on. In the near term, such collaborations may help close the gap in cybersecurity capacity through regional training programmes, shared threat intelligence initiatives and support for digital governance.

However, the rise of public-private cooperation also raises questions about long-term autonomy. If ASEAN’s AI readiness becomes dependent on external technology providers, the region risks reinforcing structural reliance rather than building sovereign capability. The balance will depend on whether these partnerships are designed to transfer knowledge and build local expertise — or simply expand market access.

Ultimately, the reports underline a hard truth: Southeast Asia’s AI future will not be determined by how quickly people adopt the technology. It will be determined by whether the region can secure the systems that AI depends on.

Without trust, AI cannot scale. And without cybersecurity, trust is the first thing to collapse.

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The Global Islamic Fintech Report 2024/2025, produced by DinarStandard and Elipses, reveals that OIC countries dominate the top 10, with Saudi Arabia leading for the first time, followed by Malaysia, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and Pakistan.

Southeast Asia, especially Malaysia and Indonesia, has long been seen as a key hub for Islamic fintech. However, with OIC countries now dominating the top 10 rankings globally, a question emerges: Is Islamic fintech in Southeast Asia declining, stagnating, or still thriving? 

This post explores the trajectory of Islamic fintech, including regulatory efforts, challenges, and emerging opportunities particularly in areas such as digital assets and AI.

Evidence of Islamic fintech’s vitality in the region

Globally, the market size of Islamic fintech transaction volume is projected to reach USD 306 billion by 2028, growing at a 13.6% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) compared to the overall global fintech industry, where the Middle East, especially the Gulf countries, now leads the way with the most Islamic fintech startups.  

In the Islamic fintech sector, the report mentions that alternative finance leads in transaction volume globally, followed by payments, wealth management, fundraising, and deposits and lending, according to current industry statistics.

For Malaysia, as a regional leader with a robust regulatory framework, Islamic banks are also well-established in Malaysia, with traditional institutions thriving alongside emerging digital banks like AEON Bank, which offers Sharia-compliant financial services through innovative mobile platforms.

Indonesia, home to the world’s largest Muslim population, continues to emerge as a key market for Islamic fintech and a leading hub, including alternative funding such as Shariah-compliant peer-to-peer lending, mobile banking, and financing tools tailored to underserved segments.

Also Read: How fintech startups are disrupting traditional banking models in Asia

Digital assets and AI are emerging as key growth sectors in Islamic fintech for 2025

As we move toward 2025, the report highlights that Islamic fintech startups involved in digital assets may be well-positioned to grow, driven by favourable regulatory policies due to growing interest and optimism. 

From digital sukuk to stablecoins, the tokenization of real world assets can help democratize Islamic finance. 

In Malaysia, KLDX, an Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) platform regulated by the SC recently tokenised Shariah-compliant investment structures in the healthcare sector illustrate the growing potential of digital asset innovation within Islamic finance. By leveraging blockchain technology to fractionalise tangible assets into tradable digital tokens, platforms like KLDX aim to broaden market access and enhance inclusivity.

Beyond the private sector, the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) also announced a collaboration with Khazanah Nasional, the country’s sovereign wealth fund, to explore the issuance of tokenised bonds including tokenised sukuk with the goal of making such asset classes more accessible to retail investors. At present, participation for such instruments is only restricted to sophisticated investors.

However, these efforts may only be truly meaningful if access is extended to retail investors, rather than remaining limited to high-net-worth individuals. Doing so would better reflect the core principles of Islamic finance, particularly those of risk-sharing, equitable access, and financial inclusion.

Another emerging area within Islamic fintech is the integration of AI to enhance compliance and automation. AI-driven models and autonomous agents are being developed to deliver personalised financial solutions, perform preliminary Shariah screening, and generate real-time, data-informed advisory services. These capabilities can reduce compliance costs and support the alignment of Islamic finance principles with digital innovation.

More cross-border cooperation needed to maintain SEA as a leading Islamic fintech hub

Despite its continuous growth, Islamic fintech faces significant challenges. 

In addition to ongoing challenges in accessing capital cited in the earlier report, growing ambition of Islamic fintech startups to expand into new jurisdictions is increasingly hindered by regulatory fragmentation and the complexities of cross-border expansion. 

Earlier this month, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the Fintech Association of Malaysia (FAOM) and Asosiasi Fintech Syariah Indonesia (AFSI) during the Fikratech Roundtable in Indonesia reflects growing cooperation between Malaysia’s Securities Commission (SC) and Indonesia’s Otoritas Jasa Keuangan (OJK) in facilitating cross-border referrals of fintech businesses. 

Also Read: SEA fintech sees 31% funding rebound in H1 2025 amid early-stage decline

I believe that cross-border cooperation among regulators should include regulatory harmonisation to help reduce friction and foster an integrated Islamic financial ecosystem among neighbouring startups. Such initiatives will only be truly meaningful if accompanied by concrete efforts to improve regulatory ease and address market access challenges in both jurisdictions

While regulatory harmonisation across jurisdictions is still a work in progress, ecosystem enablers like the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) may also consider interim measures such as subsidising these expansion-related costs.

According to a 2023 report on Malaysia’s Islamic Digital Economy landscape by 1337 Ventures and MDEC, it was suggested that the government should consider supporting local Islamic fintech startups expanding into other markets by offsetting costs such as engaging a Shariah advisor, operational setup, and localising offerings to comply with domestic regulations. 

Final thoughts

Islamic fintech is not in decline in Southeast Asia. Instead, it is experiencing a new revival driven by innovation, regulatory support, and growing demand across emerging markets.

To sustain the momentum of Islamic fintech in Southeast Asia, particularly in Malaysia and Indonesia, targeted policy support is essential. Regional regulators, such as the SC and OJK should align their policy frameworks so that we can strengthen our position as a leading hub in the Islamic digital economy.

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