In this fireside chat from Echelon Philippines 2025, moderator Artie Lopez, Co-Founder and Startup Coach at Brainsparks, sits down with Saul Molla, Founder and CEO of FlowerStore and Potico, to discuss his bold leap from corporate stability to entrepreneurship.

Molla recounts leaving his role as CFO of Lazada to enter the gifting industry — a uniquely demanding niche within e-commerce that requires exceptional precision and a strong sense of aesthetic. He also opens up about the complexities of scaling across Southeast Asia, sharing candid insights into the distinct cultural nuances and market challenges he encountered while expanding his business regionally.

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MSIG Asia has taken a strategic equity stake in Singapore-founded travel insurtech Ancileo and entered into a regional partnership aimed at expanding its travel insurance business across Asia Pacific.

While the deal size remains undisclosed, this is less about headline funding and more about control of distribution in one of Asia’s most competitive digital battlegrounds: travel.

Also Read: PolicyStreet’s US$21M raise signals a shift from insurtech hype to infrastructure reality

For years, travel insurance has largely been treated as an afterthought at checkout, the tiny box many travellers ignore while rushing to book a flight. That model is now under strain. Airlines, online travel agencies, and digital platforms increasingly want insurance products that are easier to embed, simpler to understand, and faster to claim.

Insurers, meanwhile, want a larger slice of travel demand returning across Asia, but without relying on the same clunky legacy systems that slowed expansion in the past.

That is where the MSIG-Ancileo tie-up fits.

MSIG gets a technology and distribution partner with deep airline and OTA integration experience across more than 25 markets. Ancileo gets capital, a major insurer with balance-sheet strength, underwriting muscle, and a footprint stretching across Southeast Asia, India, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, China, Korea, and Taiwan. In plain English: one side brings the pipes, the other brings the water.

As MSIG Asia CEO Clemens Philippi put it, the partnership combines Ancileo’s “technology and distribution expertise” with MSIG’s regional footprint to deliver faster and more relevant travel experiences. Strip away the corporate polish, and the point still lands. This is a distribution deal disguised as a partnership announcement, and distribution is where travel insurance is increasingly won or lost.

Why this deal matters to both sides

For MSIG Asia, the investment is a shortcut to speed. Large insurers are good at underwriting, capital management, and regulation. They are usually less nimble when it comes to product personalisation, user journeys, and integration with digital travel sellers.

Also Read: Poni’s Cassandra Wee on why the most meaningful insurtech innovation will not come from operating in silo

Ancileo helps close that gap. Its platform is built around B2B2C travel insurance, enabling insurers to distribute policies through airlines, OTAs, and travel partners rather than relying solely on direct channels or old-school brokers.

That is crucial because travel insurance is increasingly sold at the moment of purchase. If MSIG wants to grow across Asia’s travel boom, it needs to sit where travellers book, not where they file paperwork.

For Ancileo, the benefit is equally obvious. Strategic capital from a heavyweight insurer is more valuable than a passive financial cheque if it comes with underwriting access, distribution scale, and regional credibility. Ancileo has spent years building the technology layer for travel protection. MSIG gives it a far larger field on which to deploy that technology.

Ancileo founder and CEO Olivier Michel said the goal is to “reimagine what B2B2C travel insurance looks like in Asia”. That ambition sounds lofty, but the business logic is grounded. Ancileo’s products can become harder to ignore if they are backed by a recognisable insurer and deployed across more markets at scale.

Ultimately, the deal benefits three groups beyond the companies themselves. Travellers get more relevant and better-integrated protection. Airlines and OTAs can offer an insurance product that increases ancillary revenue while improving customer trust. And both firms improve their competitive position in a region where digital travel recovery has been outpacing many earlier forecasts.

Where the capital is likely to go

Neither MSIG nor Ancileo disclosed a detailed use-of-funds plan, so there is no official line-item breakdown of how the money will be spent. But the commercial intent is clear enough from the structure of the partnership.
The capital is likely to support four areas.

First, product personalisation. Travel insurance is moving away from generic annual policies and towards modular cover tied to trip type, route, traveller profile, and disruption risk. That means more dynamic pricing and more tailored policies rather than blunt, one-size-fits-all products.

Second, deeper integrations with airlines and OTAs. Ancileo’s value lies in helping partners embed insurance inside booking flows without turning checkout into a conversion-killing maze. More capital and insurer backing should help it expand these integrations faster across Asia Pacific.

Third, claims automation and customer experience. One of the industry’s biggest headaches is not just selling policies but handling claims without driving customers to despair. Faster claims, automated triggers, and cleaner digital journeys are likely to be a major investment focus.

Also Read: What Southeast Asia can learn from Europe’s insurtech revolution

Fourth, regional expansion. MSIG’s footprint gives Ancileo a ready-made path into more markets. That does not mean instant rollout everywhere, but it does create a credible route to scale that many insurtechs spend years trying to build from scratch.

Asia’s travel rebound is rewriting the insurance playbook

The timing is hardly accidental. Travel across Asia has been recovering on several fronts at once: rising intra-Asia tourism, expanded airline capacity, visa waivers in key corridors, and a continued shift to mobile-first booking behaviour. Southeast Asia, in particular, has benefited from strong regional demand as travellers opt for shorter-haul, more frequent trips.

This is important because travel insurance adoption tends to rise with booking frequency and digital convenience. The more often people travel and the more they book through apps and online platforms, the easier it becomes to present insurance as part of the booking journey rather than as a separate financial product.

Several forces are accelerating that shift.

The first is higher disruption awareness. Travellers have become more conscious of delays, cancellations, baggage issues, medical emergencies, and weather-related disruptions. The pandemic changed traveller psychology, and climate volatility has kept that anxiety alive.

The second is embedded distribution. Airlines and OTAs no longer want insurance to be a clumsy upsell bolted awkwardly onto a transaction. They want integrated products that are easier to explain and easier to claim. That increases take-up rates.

The third is a better digital claims infrastructure. Consumers are more willing to buy insurance when they believe they will not need to wrestle a call centre for weeks to get paid.

As for market size, exact estimates vary by research firm, but most industry trackers place the global travel insurance market in the low tens of billions of US dollars in the mid-2020s, with Asia Pacific among the fastest-growing regions. Broadly, the market is expected to expand strongly over the next decade as more travel sales move online and embedded insurance becomes standard at checkout. Asia’s share of that growth is likely to be disproportionately high, thanks to rising middle-class travel demand, stronger regional air connectivity, and the sheer scale of outbound and intra-regional traffic.

That is the larger backdrop to this deal. MSIG and Ancileo are not inventing a market. They are trying to get ahead of one that is already changing shape.

The Iran factor and the limits of travel cover

One complication hangs over the broader travel insurance sector: geopolitics.  Wars and tensions between countries (for example, the ongoing war in the Middle East) would ripple through the travel insurance market quickly. Airspace restrictions, flight rerouting, cancellations, fuel-cost pressure, and destination risk repricing all feed into the economics of travel cover.

This is where the industry gets messy. Most travel insurance policies contain war exclusions, meaning losses caused directly by war are often not covered. But indirect consequences (delays, missed connections, or trip disruption linked to changing airline operations, etc.) may be covered depending on the policy wording and trigger. That creates exactly the kind of ambiguity travellers hate, and insurers must price carefully.

For firms such as MSIG Asia, this means tougher underwriting, sharper policy wording, and potentially higher claims volatility around disruption products. For insurtech players such as Ancileo, it raises the bar on product clarity and real-time distribution. Travellers want to know what is covered before they buy, not after they are stuck in an airport staring at a departures board that resembles performance art.

Also Read: Meet Forgettable, the startup transforming the world’s most forgettable product: insurance

In that sense, geopolitical volatility strengthens the case for smarter travel insurance technology. Products need to be clearer, more modular, and easier to distribute dynamically as risk conditions change.

That is the real story behind this investment. MSIG Asia is not merely buying into an insurtech. It is buying into a mechanism for selling, adapting, and servicing travel protection in a region where the travel rebound is real, the competition is intensifying, and the risks are becoming more complex. Ancileo, meanwhile, gets a powerful ally in its effort to turn travel insurance from a neglected add-on into a core part of the booking experience.

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When we think of healthtech in South and Southeast Asia, certain themes often spring to mind: SARS, COVID-19, and an ageing population driving a demand for effective eldercare. For those of us living here, these issues feel obvious and urgent. But what’s obvious to us in the region is not always obvious to decision-makers sitting in other parts of the world.

It’s a reminder that when it comes to innovation in healthcare, perspective matters.

A missed opportunity in telehealth

In a previous role at a late-stage video conferencing company, I saw firsthand how a lack of local context can mean missing the moment. Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, a colleague from Hong Kong and I proposed that we should give away video conferencing licenses to healthcare institutions.

At the time, governments across South and Southeast Asia were already mobilising to prepare their healthcare systems. We believed that this was the perfect opportunity to not only seize market share but also build a reputation as a company that understood the urgency and wanted to help.

The idea was met with scepticism at our London sales headquarters and was ultimately rejected. We were a small team of four in Asia trying to signal the importance of moving quickly, but our urgency didn’t translate back to the company’s US headquarters.

Three months later, the world was in lockdown. The company eventually doubled down on telehealth, but the approach (to me at least) felt outdated. The market had already moved, and many of the most interesting innovations we were seeing were coming from startups within the region, not from Europe or the US.

Also Read: Decoding digital preferences: A glimpse into the future of health tech ecosystem in SEA

Learning from Sehat Kehani

Around that time, I met the founder of Sehat Kehani, a Pakistani healthtech company with a clear mission and a deep understanding of its local context. The company was addressing three critical issues:

• Increasing female doctors’ participation in Pakistan’s workforce
• Extending healthcare outreach to rural villages in Pakistan and Afghanistan
• Training local nurses to deliver telehealth services, connecting patients to remote female doctors

This approach was remarkable because it was designed from the ground up to work within the constraints and opportunities of the local healthcare ecosystem. It wasn’t about parachuting in technology or people from elsewhere; it was about building something that made sense for the realities on the ground.

If our HQ had been willing to listen and pivot, we could have adapted our platform to serve this massive, underserved market. Instead, after being acquired by a US telco, we exited customers from this region entirely.

Why local founders matter

Experiences like this have shaped the way I evaluate healthtech startups. I look at how “close” the founders are to the market they are serving. If they are too far removed from the region, they are often too far removed from the problem, and that distance makes it difficult to design truly effective solutions.

The strongest healthtech innovations in Asia often come from founders who have lived the problem, understand its nuances, and can navigate local systems to get solutions into the hands of those who need them most.

Standout examples in the region

Here are just a few companies that stand out for their impact and market insight:

• Sehat Kehani (Pakistan) – Rural telemedicine and enabling greater participation of female doctors in the workforce.
• SixtyPlus (India) – At-home eldercare for a rapidly aging population.
• HealthPro (Indonesia) – Home healthcare services tailored to urban and semi-urban populations.
• MedEasy (Bangladesh) – Combining B2C and B2B pharmaceutical services with telehealth delivery.
• PulseTech (Bangladesh) – B2B pharmaceutical distribution designed for emerging market supply chains.
• Relaxy (Bangladesh) – Mental health services in a context where mental wellbeing is often overlooked or stigmatised.
• Sova Health (India) – Supplements tailored for the Indian gut biome, recognising the need for locally relevant nutrition science.
• TB-AI (Pakistan) – Rapid diagnostics using mobile phone technology, scalable across rural Africa and Asia.
• Amar Lab (Bangladesh) – Bringing lab diagnostics directly to patients’ doors.

These aren’t just product stories; they are founder stories. Each one reflects a combination of lived experience, deep market understanding, and creative problem-solving.

Also Read: Empowering women in healthtech: The role of technology in driving inclusive workplaces

Healthtech’s frontline role in Asia

Healthtech is no longer a “nice to have” in South and Southeast Asia: it is an essential part of building resilient healthcare systems. The region faces a unique mix of challenges:

• Large rural populations with limited access to formal healthcare
• Uneven distribution of medical professionals, especially in specialised fields
• Rising demand for eldercare as life expectancy increases
• A growing awareness of mental health and preventive care needs

At the same time, there are powerful enablers:

• High mobile penetration, even in rural areas
• Increasing acceptance of telemedicine post-COVID-19
• A growing pool of local founders building solutions for local problems

The best solutions emerging here are not imported wholesale from Silicon Valley. They are tailored to local realities: from bandwidth limitations to cultural sensitivities, and are designed to be affordable and accessible.

The global relevance of local solutions

One of the most exciting aspects of Asia’s healthtech innovations is their potential for global application. Technologies built to work in low-resource settings such as mobile-based diagnostics, community health worker training platforms, and AI-powered remote consultations, are not just relevant for emerging markets. They can also address healthcare access issues in underserved communities worldwide.

This is why listening to and supporting local founders is so important. The problems they are solving are urgent today in Asia, but they may be the same problems others will face tomorrow elsewhere.

Looking ahead

The future of healthtech in South and Southeast Asia will be shaped by the intersection of technology, cultural understanding, and policy support. Startups that can blend these elements will not only transform healthcare access in their home markets but could also influence how care is delivered globally.

For investors, this is a space where impact and returns are not mutually exclusive. For policymakers, it’s a chance to integrate nimble, tech-enabled solutions into broader public health strategies.

As I’ve learned, being close to the problem is the only way to design the right solution. And in healthtech, the right solution can mean the difference between life and death.

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In Southeast Asia’s vibrant startup ecosystem, strategic investors from technology giants like Alibaba, Tencent, and Google offer more than just capital. Unlike traditional VC funds, they can provide access to technology, networks, and markets, aligning investments with their business goals.

For the 700 million consumer market in our region, these partnerships can catapult startups to regional dominance. However, founders face significant risks, including loss of control and misalignment of incentives, which can jeopardise autonomy and long-term success. This week’s post addresses the opportunities and challenges of taking on strategic corporate investors and highlights the safeguards founders should consider to stay aligned and in control.

What is a strategic investment?

A strategic investment is when an established company invests in a young startup with the aim that the investment can bring something of value to the investor itself. The aim may be for the investor to gain access to a particular product or technology that the startup company is developing, or to support young startups that could become customers for the investor’s own existing products.

A well known example is Microsoft’s investment into OpenAI, where the partnership went beyond capital into deep product and market collaboration to spur AI technologies.

What are the benefits of a strategic investment?

Strategic investments usually bring huge advantages other than the usual cash investment including even willingness to  accept a higher valuation to make a deal work. Additionally, a strategic investor can offer other support including operational expertise,  such as integration into a corporate ecosystem like expertise in existing verticals such as logistics or cloud which can provide instant market access and credibility. 

Also Read: Unlocking startup investment: The vital role of virtual data rooms

Patient capital is another benefit, as corporates may likely be able to tolerate longer return timelines for strategic value. The “halo effect” of partnering with a global giant boosts valuations and attracts talent, while mentorship from industry leaders accelerates growth in our region’s competitive digital landscape.

Risks and challenges in a strategic investment

Despite these benefits, strategic investments can also carry substantial risks. 

Founders may lose control when investors demand board seats or veto powers, as seen in the usual hierarchical business cultures prevalent in our culture such as in Indonesia or Thailand, where pressure to concede may be intense. 

Misalignment is a key risk, as corporates may prioritise their own agendas such as redirecting product development or valuable intellectual property to serve their ecosystem which potentially stifles your ability to innovate. 

In our past experience at Izwan & Partners, I have seen situations where a corporate investor comes into a startup, but the business leader involved in the deal who backed you initially later moves on or decides to pivot in a new direction. In such a scenario, without clear alignment or written safeguards, you may be left stuck if priorities shift after a leadership change.

Over-reliance on a single investor may also expose your startup to corporate shifts, such as economic downturns or geopolitical tensions (e.g. the US and Chinese firms vying for regional dominance). 

The “halo effect”, while beneficial, can deter potential acquirers wary of competing with a strategic investor, limiting exit options for existing investors and founders.

Alibaba’s US$1 billion controlling stake in Lazada in 2016 may be a good case study that allowed the e-commerce platform to benefit via logistics integration but eroded founders’ autonomy as Alibaba reshaped its own operations. Tencent’s US$1.5 billion investment in Sea Group in 2018 may have helped to supercharge Shopee’s growth, but it may also likely come with  additional pressure to follow Tencent’s playbook considering its challenges against the backdrop of having to deal with the US-China geopolitical tensions.

Making strategic investment work and mitigating risks

To navigate these challenges, founders must engage a startup lawyer to help them structure deals carefully. and include milestones tied to strategic support, not just funds.

Also Read: McKinsey: Strategic investment fuels Asia Pacific quantum computing expansion

Other considerations include:

• Minority stake: Where possible, negotiate for the strategic investors to take up minority stakes so that you can retain control.
• Board and voting rights: Negotiate veto rights or reserved matters to protect against unwanted pivots.
• Milestone-based commitments: Tie part of the deal to strategic support (e.g. distribution, partnerships, market access), not just cash.
• IP protection: Restrict how your technology, know-how, or data can be used within the corporate investor’s ecosystem.
• Exit flexibility: Ensure you’re not locked into the corporate investor if future fundraising or an acquisition opportunity arises (e.g. shares swap or put option agreement). This can help preserve autonomy in the unfortunate event that things don’t work out post-investment
• Funding alignment: Clarify expectations on follow-on funding and whether they’ll support future rounds. Diversifying funding sources may help reduce reliance on one investor, mitigating risks from the investor’s corporate or geopolitical shifts.
• Non-compete/exclusivity: Limit how far the corporate investor can restrict you from working with others in the same industry.
• Leadership change clauses: Address what happens if the corporate champion backing you leaves or priorities shift.

In any funding deal, it is crucial for you to conduct your own due diligence including vetting the corporate investor’s past track record with their past portfolio investments. 

Final thoughts

As a founder, getting a strategic investor in a company can offer unparalleled benefits including new sources of capital, networks, and expertise that can propel your business to greater success, as seen in Lazada and Shopee. Yet, the risks of control loss and misalignment need to be managed properly to avoid misalignment of interests down the line.

By learning from these case studies, I hope you can consider how a strategic investment can let your startup harness corporate strengths while safeguarding your startup’s agility to innovate and grow.

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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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Every weekend across Bangkok, the same friction plays out in slow motion. A group of friends wants to book a table at a rooftop bar they heard about on Instagram. They find a venue page with no online booking, fire off a WhatsApp message that goes unread until midnight, and end up somewhere else by default.

For the venue, it is a lost reservation. For the customer, it is a forgettable non-experience. For Nightify, it is the exact problem worth building a company around.

Also Read: A2D Ventures backs LineWise to put a 24/7 AI engineer on every factory floor

Thailand-based Nightify has closed a US$500,000 seed round led by A2D Ventures, with participation from angel investors spanning hospitality, retail, and consumer sectors. The capital will go toward expanding its venue network across Thailand, deepening its product capabilities, and laying the groundwork for regional expansion across Southeast Asia.

A fragmented market hiding in plain sight

The nightlife and entertainment industry in Southeast Asia is a serious economic force that is rarely treated as such. The region’s broader food and beverage and nightlife sector — spanning bars, clubs, live music venues, and hospitality entertainment — is estimated to represent a multi-billion-dollar opportunity. Thailand alone, one of the world’s top tourism destinations, drew over 35 million international arrivals in 2023 and has a nightlife economy that punches well above its weight.

Across Southeast Asia, the hospitality and entertainment market is projected to surpass US$90 billion by 2030, driven by a young, urbanising population with rising disposable incomes and a deeply social consumer culture.

Yet the infrastructure powering this industry looks nothing like its scale. Most venues still rely on a patchwork of WhatsApp threads, manual spreadsheets, and disconnected reservation tools that were not built for the pace of nightlife operations. Discovery is fragmented across Instagram pages, Google Maps listings, and word of mouth. There is no single layer that ties bookings, events, customer data, and brand partnerships together. That gap is where Nightify is planting its flag.

The operating system for nights out

Nightify positions itself as a two-sided platform serving both consumers and venues simultaneously. On the user side, it offers discovery based on music genre, venue vibe, and location, alongside seamless table bookings and event access. On the venue side, it provides a booking engine, event management and promotion tools, upselling and add-on package capabilities, and CRM tools that help operators understand and retain their customers.

The company is already live with a credible list of Bangkok venues, including Bar Us, The NORM Bangkok, Vesper, Dry Wave Cocktail Studio, and F*nkytown, names that carry genuine weight in the city’s nightlife scene.

As the platform matures, Nightify is deepening its integration into venue operations, targeting POS integrations, payment processing, and full-stack operational tooling that would make switching away genuinely costly for operators.

Also Read: Thailand’s cybersecurity boom has a weak core

“People don’t go out just to transact,” said Wuthi Bunyapamai, co-founder and CEO of Nightify. “They go out to feel something, to connect, discover, and be part of something bigger. Our goal is to become the default layer for nightlife, where every night out begins.”

Western parallels and what Southeast Asia needs differently

Nightify is not inventing a category from scratch. In the US and Europe, platforms like Resy, OpenTable, and SevenRooms have carved out significant positions in the hospitality tech stack, though their focus skews heavily toward fine dining and restaurant reservations rather than nightlife specifically. Discotech, an American app targeting nightclub table bookings in Las Vegas and Miami, is perhaps the closest conceptual parallel, while SpotOn and Tock have also built venue management tooling with a tighter entertainment focus.

What distinguishes the Southeast Asian context is the sheer informality and fragmentation of the market. Western hospitality tech grew up alongside restaurant groups and hotel chains that already had formalised operations.

In Bangkok, Jakarta, or Kuala Lumpur, the average nightlife operator is far less structured, making the education and onboarding challenge steeper, but the value proposition considerably higher once adoption takes hold.

The markets beyond Bangkok

While Thailand is the natural starting point, bolstered by its global tourism brand and a genuinely world-class nightlife culture, the regional opportunity is substantial. Indonesia, home to over 270 million people and a rapidly expanding urban middle class, has a Jakarta nightlife scene that rivals Bangkok in energy and complexity. Vietnam, particularly Ho Chi Minh City, has seen an explosion of rooftop bars, craft cocktail venues, and live music spaces over the past five years.

The Philippines, especially Manila and Cebu, runs a deeply embedded nightlife economy that has historically been one of Southeast Asia’s most vibrant. Singapore, while more regulated, has a premium hospitality market with operators hungry for better tooling.

Each of these markets has a different regulatory landscape and consumer behaviour profile, but all share the same structural problem Nightify is trying to solve: discovery is broken, operations are manual, and customer relationships are underbuilt.

Multiple paths to revenue

Nightify’s business model has several logical levers. The most immediate is a commission or booking fee on reservations processed through the platform, a standard approach that scales directly with transaction volume. Beyond that, subscription or SaaS fees charged to venues for access to CRM, event management, and analytics tools generate recurring revenue that is not dependent on individual booking flows.

Brand partnership and activation revenue (already demonstrated through collaborations with Grab, White Claw, and Coffee Meets Bagel) adds a media and sponsorship dimension that is particularly attractive in nightlife, where brand association carries genuine cultural currency. As Nightify pushes into payments and POS, a take-rate on in-venue transactions becomes a longer-term possibility. The combination of transaction fees, SaaS subscriptions, and brand revenue gives the business multiple margin layers rather than a single fragile monetisation path.

Why this model scales

The scalability question is the right one to ask. Two-sided marketplace businesses in fragmented, local industries are notoriously hard to build, but they also tend to produce durable competitive moats once network effects take hold.

In Nightify’s case, each new venue added increases the platform’s value to users, and each new user increases the commercial incentive for venues to onboard. The CRM and operational tooling create switching costs that go beyond discovery, and the brand partnership business benefits from scale in a way that a single-venue operator could never access independently.

Also Read: ‘Thai startups face challenges in funding, corporate engagement, global expansion’: A2D Ventures

A2D Ventures’ Ankit Upadhyay pointed directly to team pedigree as the investment’s primary driver. “Nightify is powered by a formidable Thai team with an elite pedigree. The founders bring experience from firms like Agoda, Accenture, Bitazza, Minor International, and Oppo. This mix of consumer tech, scale-up, and hospitality expertise is exactly what’s needed to solve real industry challenges with regional potential.”

The US$500,000 seed round is a modest opening bet on a market that has been chronically underserved by technology. Whether Nightify can translate Bangkok traction into a regional footprint will depend on its ability to standardise onboarding across wildly different market conditions. But the infrastructure gap it is targeting is real, the team has the operational range to pursue it, and Southeast Asia’s nightlife economy is far too large to remain this poorly served for much longer.

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I was midway through an assessment test for a company when I started noticing a pattern. Several questions revolved around the same theme: should you show emotions at work, or is it better to keep them hidden? The questions were never framed directly. Instead, they appeared as situational judgment scenarios-how you would respond to conflict, pressure, or disagreement. But beneath the surface, they were testing the same thing: emotional expression versus control. I found myself pausing longer than expected, not because I lacked experience, but because I wasn’t convinced there was a single “correct” answer.

In many professional environments, especially in Asia, we are conditioned to believe that being composed equals being competent. Emotions are often treated as distractions, something to manage privately so they don’t interfere with performance. But that assumption has never fully matched my experience.

As a corporate trainer, I quite often run improv workshops for corporate teams, and one of the core principles I always introduce is simple: bring emotions into the room. Not in a disruptive way, but in an intentional one. Tension, frustration, excitement-these were not things to suppress, but tools to build more authentic interactions. Every time we did this, the energy shifted. People who were initially guarded became more engaged. Conversations became less rehearsed and more real. Ideas flowed more freely, not because participants were trying harder, but because they were less filtered.

Also Read: Why inclusive hiring matters for a startup ecosystem

What struck me most was not that emotions made the room chaotic, but that they made it alive. That realisation stayed with me as I moved into startup environments, where the stakes are higher and the structures less defined. Ironically, these are the environments where emotions are both more present and less discussed. Looking back, the moments when my own emotions surfaced most strongly at work were rarely during creative highs. They usually appeared when I was under sustained pressure, often teetering on the edge of burnout. And when they surfaced, they didn’t come out in ways I was proud of. I became reactive. My comments carried frustration that had little to do with the immediate situation, and I often turned critical-not of others, but of myself. What felt like expression in the moment was, in reality, a loss of control.

Over time, I noticed a pattern that was hard to ignore. Whenever I reached that stage, it was usually followed by my exit from the company not long after. That correlation forced me to rethink something fundamental. It wasn’t that emotions were inappropriate at work; it was that I had never been taught how to process them within a professional context. They built up quietly until they had no choice but to surface, often in ways that were misaligned with the situation.

This is where I think many of us get it wrong. We frame the conversation as a binary: be emotional or be professional. In reality, the issue is whether emotions are processed or suppressed. In startup environments, this distinction becomes even more critical. The pace is faster, ambiguity is higher, and feedback loops are shorter. You are constantly navigating incomplete information, shifting priorities, and diverse personalities. All of these factors are emotional triggers. Ignoring them doesn’t make them disappear-it simply delays their impact.

Also Read: Transition climate risk: Navigating the future of sustainable real estate

What I’ve come to realise is that emotional discipline is not about shutting feelings down. It’s about recognising them early enough that they don’t take over your decisions. That awareness, however, doesn’t come naturally. For a long time, I didn’t have a structured way to build it. Only recently have I started experimenting with something simple but surprisingly effective: creating just enough distance between what I feel and how I respond. Not by removing emotions, but by learning how to sit with them a little longer.

Because in the end, the goal isn’t to hide emotions at work. It’s to make sure they don’t speak louder than our judgment. When handled thoughtfully, emotions can guide decisions, enhance creativity, and even strengthen relationships. Suppressed or unmanaged, they become obstacles.

Recognising that distinction has been one of the most important lessons of my professional journey, particularly in the unpredictable world of startups.

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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.

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Over the past few years, the conversation around startup funding has started to shift. Not in a dramatic way, but in how capital is actually distributed across stages.

For a long time, venture capital sat at the centre of everything. Founders built it with it in mind from day one. The path felt clear. Raise early, scale fast, move through rounds. That model still exists, and venture capital continues to play a major role globally. Strong companies are still being funded, large rounds are still happening, and the system itself remains active.

But the shape of that system has changed.

Globally, venture capital today tends to engage more decisively when there is clearer traction. Businesses that show stronger execution, more defined markets, and visible growth pathways are where attention concentrates more naturally. This does not reduce the presence of venture capital. It shifts how and when it becomes most relevant.

In Southeast Asia, this pattern is even more visible. The ecosystem has matured, and with that comes a clearer separation between stages. Venture capital is still very much part of the journey, but it tends to play a more central role as companies move into growth phases, where there is already a base to build on.

At the earlier stages, the picture looks different.

Early-stage capital is still active, but it no longer sits in one place. It is distributed across a wider set of channels. Accelerators, incubators, venture studios, corporate programs, and a growing layer of grant and hybrid funding systems all play a role in supporting new ventures. In many cases, this is where early momentum is built.

These channels are not simply smaller versions of venture capital. They operate with different objectives. Some are designed to support ecosystem development, others focus on specific sectors, and many are aligned with institutional or policy-driven goals. The capital is there, but it sits within frameworks that are structured differently.

From the outside, this creates a sense that there is more capital available across more sectors than before. In many ways, that is true. But it also means that accessing this capital requires a clearer understanding of how each part of the system works.

A founder today may engage with multiple funding pathways at the same time. Applying to an accelerator, exploring grant opportunities, speaking to early-stage investors, and preparing for future venture rounds. The intent is to increase the chances of funding. The effort is broad.

What often remains unchanged is the approach.

Also Read: Why inclusive hiring matters for a startup ecosystem

The same narrative, the same materials, and the same assumptions are carried across different funding channels. A pitch designed for venture capital is used in a grant application. A grant proposal is framed with a venture-style story. Adjustments are made, but the core remains largely the same.

When outcomes do not change, it becomes difficult to interpret. It begins to feel like a reflection of the venture itself.

In reality, each funding channel operates as a filter before it becomes an opportunity. The evaluation begins with alignment. Stage, geography, structure, use of funds, and intent all shape how an application is read. These are not always visible from the outside, but they influence outcomes early in the process.

If the alignment is off, the process rarely moves forward in a meaningful way.

Because these filters are not always clearly communicated, founders tend to focus on what they can control. The pitch is refined, the message is sharpened, the projections are updated. Then the process repeats, often across multiple programs.

Over time, this creates a pattern where effort increases, but outcomes remain similar.

Seen from a broader perspective, this is less about the absence of capital and more about how that capital is structured.

Venture capital continues to play a central role, particularly as companies move into stages where scale and growth become more visible. At the same time, early-stage capital is active across programs, institutional channels, and sector-focused funding systems. Each layer is functioning, but each operates differently.

The result is a funding landscape that is more layered than before.

Also Read: Unlock your enterprise agility to unleash the potential of your startup

For founders, this means that the journey is no longer about approaching a single source of capital. It is about understanding how different forms of capital connect to different stages of the business. Moving through these layers in a way that matches the venture’s current position becomes increasingly important.

Without that alignment, the process can feel repetitive. Applications go out, responses come back, and the cycle continues without clear movement. With it, the same landscape begins to make more sense.

The capital is there. In many ways, there is more of it across more channels than before.

The difference lies in how it is approached and how well each venture fits within the system it is entering.

Understanding where startup money is really coming from today is not just about identifying new sources. It is about recognising that each source operates on its own logic, and aligning with that logic early in the journey.

Because in today’s funding landscape, there is no shortage of capital conversations. Only a shortage of alignment.

And if everything still feels confusing, there is always the classic fallback. 
Update the pitch deck, change the font, add a bigger market size slide, and try again.

Sometimes that works.

Just not for the reasons most people think.

So before doing that, it is worth stepping back and looking across the full spectrum of capital available today, venture capital, grants, blended finance, catalytic capital, and everything in between, and deciding where the real fit actually is.

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The Philippines’s services sector is indisputably the country’s engine of growth and employment. Today, it accounts for more than half of the national GDP and has posted growth rates that, at times, rival those of fast‑growing economies in the region.

Yet beneath headline growth lies a structural challenge: much of the expansion has been concentrated in labour-intensive, low‑productivity activities—traditional retail outlets, basic hospitality, and standardised business process outsourcing (BPO) roles. These activities provide essential jobs and incomes, but they lack the capital intensity, technological sophistication, and organisational complexity necessary for sustained gains in output per worker.

Also Read: The hidden tax on Philippine SMEs: Unreliable infrastructure

From a “Services Growth Problem” to a “Services Model Problem”

As per the Philippine Private Capital Report 2026 by Foxmont Capital Partners, this is less a services growth problem and more a services model problem. Persisting with expansion primarily through increased headcount in low‑productivity roles risks trapping the Philippines at middle‑income levels, aka the middle‑income trap. Breaking through requires reimagining how services are delivered: shifting toward knowledge‑based, system‑driven, and technology‑enabled models that raise productivity per worker and increase the share of value captured domestically.

Why the distinction matters:

• Employment expansion absorbs millions of new labour market entrants and supports livelihoods across regions.
• Productivity growth determines sustainable improvements in living standards and the country’s fiscal capacity to finance public services.

Retail: Platformisation, logistics, and the sari‑sari store opportunity

Traditional retail (wet markets, sari‑sari stores, and neighbourhood shops) remains central to Philippine commerce, particularly in provincial and low‑income urban communities. These formats are low‑capital, labour‑intensive, and typically show low output per worker.

The rise of e‑commerce is beginning to decouple retail growth from physical store expansion. Platform ecosystems such as Shopee and Lazada have catalysed productivity gains through data‑driven merchandising, dynamic pricing, and logistics optimisation. While platform giants report very high productivity per worker in other markets, the Philippines can capture similar qualitative benefits by adapting models to local contexts.

Policy and business levers for retail transformation:

• Expand affordable broadband and mobile connectivity to shrink the digital divide between urban and rural areas.
• Improve last‑mile logistics: invest in local sorting hubs, cold chain for perishables, and rural delivery partnerships.
• Upskill micro‑merchants: provide simple digital tools and training so sari‑sari owners can adopt digital payments, inventory apps, and online listings.
• Strengthen financial services: micro‑credit and invoice financing enable merchants to stock higher‑value inventory and smooth cash flow.
• Ensure platform governance: enforce consumer protection, fair competition, and data privacy while encouraging local innovation.

IT‑BPM: Moving up the value chain with AI and analytics

The Philippines has built a world‑class IT‑BPM industry centred on voice‑based contact centres and transactional back‑office work. The sector has been a major export earner and employer in Metro Manila, Cebu, Clark, and other hubs. Yet automation threatens routine tasks, and scaling by sheer headcount offers diminishing returns.

Also Read: Philippines’s productivity problem starts in the classroom

The next wave of growth lies in higher‑value segments: analytics, knowledge process outsourcing (KPO), engineering services, digital transformation consulting, and AI‑enabled operations. These segments raise output per worker by embedding automation, natural language processing, and predictive analytics into workflows—reducing handling time, increasing first‑contact resolution, and offering advisory services that command higher fees.

Actions to accelerate IT‑BPM upgrading:

• Reform education: strengthen university and technical curricula in data science, software engineering, and domain specialisations (healthcare, fintech, legal process outsourcing).
• Boost lifelong learning: subsidise bootcamps, certifications, and company‑sponsored reskilling programs for mid‑career workers.
• Incentivise high‑value investment: targeted tax and non‑tax incentives for companies establishing analytics, R&D, and innovation centres in the Philippines.
• Promote local scaleups: expand venture capital and growth financing for SaaS firms and analytics platforms that can export services regionally.

Policy and institutional foundations

Transformation requires coordinated public‑private action across infrastructure, education, finance, regulation, and regional development.

Key levers include:

• Digital infrastructure: accelerate nationwide fibre builds, tower deployment, and spectrum allocation to make high‑quality connectivity ubiquitous.
• Education and training: integrate computational thinking and digital literacy into K–12, expand technical-vocational education, and scale industry‑aligned short courses.
• Financial inclusion: deepen digital payments, merchant lending, and credit scoring using alternative data to unlock SME investments in productivity tools.
• Regulation and trust: strengthen data protection laws and regulatory clarity for cloud services and cross‑border data flows to attract enterprise customers.
• Regional diversification: create incentives and shared infrastructure so higher‑value service hubs develop in Cebu, Davao, Iloilo, Clark, and other cities—reducing congestion in Metro Manila and tapping local talent pools.

Social considerations and inclusive transition

Technology and productivity gains can displace certain roles even as they create higher‑value ones. Managing this transition requires active labour market policies:

Also Read: Philippines’s quiet AI revolution is about work, not tech

• Reskilling and upskilling programs targeted at workers most likely to be affected by automation.
• Transition support and portable social protections (e.g., unemployment insurance, wage subsidies during retraining).
• Community outreach and accessible training channels—mobile training units, local government partnerships, and employer commitments to hire trained workers.
• Inclusive growth also means bringing women and underrepresented groups into higher‑value services through scholarships, targeted training, and workplace flexibility measures.

Realistic timelines and the Philippines’s comparative advantages

The shift from labour‑intensive to knowledge‑ and tech‑driven services is multi‑year but achievable within a decade with concerted effort. The Philippines has several strengths to build on:

1. A large, English‑proficient, young workforce.
2. An established BPO ecosystem and global reputation for service delivery.
3. Robust remittance inflows support domestic demand and entrepreneurship.
4. Growing digital consumer adoption and a vibrant startup scene.
5. Targeted policy, industry leadership, and investments in human capital can move the country from employment‑centric growth to productivity‑centric expansion.

Conclusion: Services that create value at scale

The Philippines’s services sector can remain a major employer while becoming a source of higher productivity and sustainable economic growth. The pathway out of the middle‑income trap is not merely more jobs, but better, higher‑value jobs that scale through knowledge, systems, and technology rather than headcount alone.

Also Read: From assembly line to innovation engine: Can Philippines climb the chip value chain?

When retail becomes platform‑enabled and IT‑BPM evolves into analytics and AI‑led services, output per worker rises, wages grow, and the economy creates more value with less proportional labour input—an outcome that benefits workers, firms, and the nation.

The post The productivity pivot the Philippines can’t delay appeared first on e27.

Groundup AI, the Singapore-born startup that pioneered what it describes as the world’s first Agentic AI for Cognitive Maintenance, has closed its most significant commercial agreement to date. The contract, valued at more than US$10 million, involves the large-scale deployment of the company’s flagship platform across multi-site critical operations for one of the world’s leading asset-heavy organisations.

The identity of the client has not been disclosed for strategic reasons, but the scope of the agreement signals growing institutional confidence in AI-driven approaches to industrial uptime and asset management. The deal was secured following a rigorous competitive evaluation process.

Traditional predictive maintenance has long been the industry standard, offering organisations advanced warning of potential equipment failure. Groundup AI’s proposition moves a step further, positioning its platform as a system capable of autonomous diagnosis, reasoning, and operational guidance. The startup terms it Cognitive Maintenance.

The platform is underpinned by the Groundup AI Asset Library, a proprietary repository of more than 5,000 anomaly signatures that enables deep-tier pattern matching and root cause analysis. The company’s in-house AI, GINA AI, continuously learns from live operational environments, improving diagnostic accuracy over time without requiring lengthy onboarding or complex deployment cycles.

“The world is ready for Cognitive Maintenance that reasons, diagnoses, and guides,” according to Leon Lim, CEO and Founder, Groundup AI, in a press statement.

Also Read: Human imposter syndrome magnified: When AI knows more than we ever could

Regional ambition

The record-breaking contract follows a period of rapid growth for Groundup AI. In April 2025, the company closed a US$4.25 million Series A funding round led by Tin Men Capital, with participation from Wavemaker Partners, SEEDS Capital, and HIVEN, the venture capital arm of CJ International Asia. That capital injection has allowed the company to accelerate its technical development and expand its footprint across the region.

Alex Wong, COO and Co-Founder of Groundup AI, described the contract as an opportunity to execute the company’s core mission at unprecedented scale. The firm has trained its sights on the manufacturing, maritime, and critical infrastructure sectors, which it believes hold billions in untapped value that smarter maintenance systems could unlock.

Groundup AI’s technology combines industrial Internet of Things infrastructure with proprietary acoustic sensors and autonomous AI agents to deliver what it calls Physical AI reliability. The platform is designed to bridge the gap between the domain expertise of experienced engineers and the pattern-recognition capabilities of machine intelligence.

Yong Tai, Sales Engineer and Founding Team Member, highlighted that the company’s ambitions extend beyond software. “From heavy industries to advanced manufacturing, this milestone is about finally bridging the gap between raw data and action on the ground,” he said.

As global industries face mounting pressure to reduce unplanned downtime, cut operational costs, and meet sustainability targets, the case for Cognitive Maintenance is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Groundup AI’s latest contract suggests that at least one major organisation is prepared to make that transition at scale — and that the era of autonomous industrial reliability may already be underway.

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Image Credit: Groundup AI

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