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Bitcoin shifts from a speculative retail asset to an institutional cornerstone of global finance. Recent developments in sovereign wealth fund allocations, the creation of institutional financial products, and massive ETF inflows demonstrate a profound structural shift. The data reveals a market maturing rapidly, even as it grapples with inherent tensions between traditional financial co-option and cryptographic sovereignty.

Recognising the deep correlation between traditional financial markets and cryptocurrency markets allows us to see these institutional moves not as isolated events, but as a synchronised realignment of global capital. I consistently challenge mainstream narratives that dismiss this asset class, relying instead on independent analysis of on-chain data, derivatives volume, and macroeconomic indicators to form a clear picture of the future trajectory.

The inaugural Institutional Crypto Adoption Report by Bitwise Asset Management provides compelling evidence of this macroeconomic shift. At least one major sovereign wealth fund recently liquidated portions of its gold and foreign exchange reserves specifically to purchase Bitcoin. This action treats the asset as a direct substitute for traditional reserve holdings, validating the digital gold thesis at the highest levels of state finance.

Gold has served as the premier safe haven for centuries, making this direct substitution a monumental validation of cryptographic money as a legitimate store of value alongside traditional fiat reserves. The report also highlights remarkable conviction among large-scale holders. None of the 15 large institutions surveyed liquidated their positions during the severe 50 per cent price drawdown that occurred between late 2025 and mid 2026. This behaviour indicates the emergence of a structural, non-speculative source of demand.

Such conservative state-level validation suggests that the asset will experience reduced volatility over the long term, anchoring its value proposition firmly within global macroeconomic strategy rather than fleeting retail sentiment cycles. Traditional financial frameworks often attempt to apply outdated regulatory tests to decentralised systems, a practice I have long argued remains fundamentally unsuitable for cryptographic networks that operate outside conventional corporate hierarchies.

Also Read: Can Bitcoin hold US$82,000? Inside the security fear and macro storm

Beyond simple accumulation, institutions now actively build sophisticated capital markets around this digital asset. Research from TD Cowen following the Bitcoin Treasuries Conference outlines a clear evolution in corporate strategy. Firms now develop bitcoin-backed bonds, preferred shares, and advanced custody solutions.

Companies like Strategy continue to actively acquire the asset for their corporate treasuries, signaling a permanent allocation shift that moves Bitcoin from a speculative holding to a foundational balance-sheet asset. This financial engineering expands the network’s utility far beyond that of a simple spot asset. It creates new yield and financing mechanisms that appeal to a much broader spectrum of institutional portfolios. We must critically assess this integration.

Traditional finance often attempts to fit decentralised technology into familiar, centralised boxes to extract rent and exert control. The challenge lies in harnessing this institutional capital without sacrificing the decentralised architecture that gives the network its unique value and censorship resistance. True decentralisation requires us to remain vigilant against the centralising forces of traditional finance seeking to dominate the infrastructure and impose legacy compliance burdens that contradict the core ethos of peer-to-peer electronic cash.

Market liquidity and ETF flows currently serve as the most accurate indicators of investor sentiment, and recent data presents a striking picture of renewed institutional demand. United States spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded approximately US$2.4 billion in net inflows during the week ending around September 25. This represents the largest weekly influx since roughly US$2.7 billion in early October 2025, according to SoSoValue data. This single week successfully reversed a year-to-date deficit of approximately US$5.8 billion recorded in mid-July, pushing the 2026 net inflows to roughly US$0.9 billion.

Cumulative inflows since launch now hover near US$57.5 billion. BlackRock IBIT, Fidelity FBTC, and ARK 21Shares ARKB products dominated this activity, collectively accounting for over 90 per cent of weekly flows in some specific tallies. Consequently, spot funds now hold between US$108 billion and US$111 billion in assets. This constitutes roughly 6 per cent to 6.5 per cent of total market value.

This concentrated buying power successfully supported prices in the low to mid 80,000s, even as total cryptocurrency market capitalisation experienced slight dips near US$2.8 trillion and dominance held steady at approximately 58.7 per cent. Regulated funds have become a major structural buyer, cushioning drawdowns effectively and providing a reliable bid during periods of macroeconomic uncertainty, thereby decoupling the asset from pure retail sentiment cycles.

Also Read: Bitcoin dominance at 58.5% and the 55% line that still blocks altseason

Despite these strong aggregate numbers, the internal composition of this demand warrants careful scrutiny. The weekly inflow data reveals a heavily front-loaded pattern. Investors injected roughly US$999 million on Monday, but daily inflows shrank to approximately US$135 million by Friday. This represents an 80-90 per cent drop in daily momentum. Sustained positive flows will dictate the next market leg higher, not isolated blockbuster weeks.

Macroeconomic liquidity conditions heavily influence this dynamic. The recent surge coincided with United States Treasury plans to increase long-dated bond buybacks, which typically inject liquidity, while high yields and persistent geopolitical risks continue to pressure broader risk assets. Simultaneously, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP ETFs attracted hundreds of millions of dollars, indicating a gradual rotation of capital within the regulated crypto universe as investors diversify their exposure across multiple digital asset classes. Operational risks also remain ever-present.

The recent United States Attorney civil forfeiture case regarding a 2023 scam highlights this reality. Scammers used fraudulent text messages impersonating Coinbase to steal 33.7 BTC, valued at roughly US$900,000 at the time, from a family trust. The Federal Bureau of Investigation successfully traced these funds to a Binance account and converted the seized assets to Tether for recovery. While this demonstrates regulatory capability and the authorities’ ability to trace illicit flows, it also underscores the persistent social engineering vulnerabilities that plague the ecosystem and require ongoing user education.

The convergence of sovereign adoption, institutional financial engineering, and massive ETF inflows confirms that the asset has firmly entered a new phase of market maturity. Regulated institutional demand now forms a core component of the demand stack, effectively cushioning drawdowns and altering historical price cycles.

Viewing these speculative financial activities through a realistic lens reminds us that they remain a form of gambling with better odds than traditional markets. The sharp day-by-day slowdown during this record-inflow week proves that sustained capital commitment, rather than transient headline numbers, will determine the longevity of this bull phase.

As we move forward, market participants must closely monitor daily fund flows, total assets under management, and the ongoing tension between institutional co-option and decentralised integrity. The future of this asset class depends on maintaining its foundational cryptographic principles while successfully navigating the complex realities of global financial integration.

We must champion independent analysis and reject mainstream narratives that seek to dilute the revolutionary potential of decentralised money, ensuring that the original vision of financial sovereignty remains intact and accessible to all.

—

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

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

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MoneyHero Limited is facing a public push from its largest unaffiliated shareholder to consider a sale, as the Singapore-based personal finance platform contends with leadership uncertainty, stalled revenue growth and a sharp fall in its Nasdaq-listed shares.

Jonathan Honig, who says he beneficially owns about 9 per cent of MoneyHero’s outstanding Class A ordinary shares, issued an open letter to the company’s board on 29 September 2026 calling for an immediate strategic review. He urged the board to retain an independent financial adviser and explore strategic alternatives, including a potential sale of the company.

Also Read: MoneyHero’s winning quarter has a US$6.7M problem

The letter marks a more confrontational turn for MoneyHero, which operates digital financial comparison and marketplace platforms across parts of Asia. The company helps consumers compare products such as credit cards, personal loans and insurance, a model that can be lucrative when banks and insurers are spending heavily on customer acquisition but vulnerable when growth slows or marketing budgets tighten.

Honig said he originally invested in MoneyHero because he believed in the platform’s potential and was encouraged by its high-profile backers, including Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies, and Richard Li, founder and chairman of Pacific Century Group. But he argued that the company has not delivered the discipline or urgency shareholders expected.

“Unfortunately, that has not been the case,” Honig wrote.

Pressure builds after CEO exit

A central issue in Honig’s letter is MoneyHero’s leadership transition. On 2 April 2026, the company announced that Rohith Murthy’s tenure as CEO had ended and that CFO Danny Leung would serve as interim CEO. Nearly six months later, Honig said, the company had yet to appoint a permanent chief executive.

Murthy later resigned from the board, effective 26 May 2026. Honig said the circumstances around the departure remain unexplained to shareholders.

“The company cannot afford to operate indefinitely under interim leadership, particularly given the competitive dynamics of the markets in which it operates,” he wrote. “A business of this nature requires a permanent CEO with a clear mandate and the confidence of shareholders.”

Also Read: Ecosystem Roundup: GoTo turns profitable, but the story has changed

For a listed technology company still trying to prove its public-market story, the absence of a permanent CEO can become more than an internal matter. It affects investor confidence, strategic clarity and the ability to strike partnerships with banks, insurers and fintech firms. In Southeast Asia’s financial services market, where distribution partnerships and regulatory credibility are critical, leadership uncertainty can quickly become a commercial problem.

Revenue miss and market frustration

Honig also pointed to MoneyHero’s financial performance. According to the letter, annual revenue fell from US$80.7 million in FY2023 to US$73.4 million in FY2025, despite management having stated in April 2025 that the company expected to reach US$100 million in revenue.

He acknowledged that MoneyHero reported its first profitable quarter in Q4 2025, but noted that the company still posted a net loss for the full year. In his view, the gap between management’s targets and actual results has become too large to ignore.

The share price has deepened that frustration. Honig said MoneyHero’s most recent closing price was US$0.675, down more than 88 per cent from when it began trading publicly in October 2023.

“This is not a case of modest underperformance, it represents a near-total destruction of shareholder value,” he wrote.

MoneyHero went public during a difficult period for technology listings. Many companies that reached public markets through the 2020-2021 special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) wave struggled after listing, as interest rates rose, investor appetite cooled and public markets began demanding a clearer path to profitability. Southeast Asian tech firms, in particular, have had to adjust from a growth-at-all-costs era to one focused on margins, cash discipline and durable revenue.

That shift has been especially challenging for consumer-finance marketplaces. These platforms depend on a balance between consumer demand and financial institutions’ willingness to pay for leads or approved customers. When banks change credit appetite, tighten underwriting or reduce marketing spend, marketplace revenue can take a quick hit.

Why a sale is now on the table

Honig is not merely asking for better communication. He is asking MoneyHero’s board to explore a sale.

In the letter, he argued that a sale offers the best risk-adjusted path for shareholders to halt further losses and preserve value. He said he believes there are “numerous parties” that would be interested in acquiring the company if the board launches a credible review process, and that MoneyHero is worth at least US$1.50 per share in a transaction.

Also Read: Circle to acquire Tazapay for US$400M as USDC push moves into cross-border payments

That proposed value is more than double the US$0.675 closing price cited in the letter. Whether a buyer would pay such a premium depends on several factors: the quality of MoneyHero’s customer acquisition channels, the strength of its banking and insurance relationships, the sustainability of its revenue, and whether its regional footprint offers strategic value to a financial services group, media company, fintech platform or private equity buyer.

Honig also criticised what he described as a lack of insider confidence. Based on his review of public filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, he said no director or executive officer appeared to have bought MoneyHero shares on the open market. Investors often read insider buying as a signal that management and directors believe a company is undervalued. Its absence does not prove the opposite, but with the share price this depressed, it can add to concerns.

Rivals across a crowded comparison market

MoneyHero operates in a competitive category with both regional and global pressure. In Singapore, MoneySmart is a long-running rival in financial product comparison, while Seedly has built a personal finance community that overlaps with consumer decision-making around money products. In Malaysia, Jirnexu’s RinggitPlus has played a similar role in credit-card and loan discovery. Indonesia has Cermati, while broader global comparables include NerdWallet in the US and Moneysupermarket in the UK.

The company also competes indirectly with banks, insurers and digital lenders that increasingly prefer to acquire customers through their own apps, content channels and partner ecosystems rather than pay third-party marketplaces.

This backdrop makes scale and trust important. Consumers need transparent comparisons, while financial institutions need quality leads that convert into profitable customers. If revenue growth stalls, marketplaces can find themselves squeezed between high acquisition costs and partners demanding better economics.

The next test for MoneyHero’s board

Honig has asked the board to respond by the close of business on 5 October 2026 on whether it is willing to engage in discussions. He also called for greater transparency on the CEO search, including the expected timeline for appointing a permanent leader.

MoneyHero had not responded publicly to the letter at the time of writing.

For the board, the immediate challenge is to show that it has a credible plan. That could mean appointing a permanent CEO, explaining how the company intends to restart growth, or formally reviewing strategic options. Ignoring the letter may not be easy, given Honig’s stated 9.0 per cent stake and the severity of the share-price decline.

Also Read: Fintech funding in Singapore drops to US$499M as dealmaking becomes more selective

For Southeast Asia’s startup ecosystem, the dispute is another reminder that public markets are unforgiving. Backing from prominent investors can help a company reach the market, but once listed, shareholders judge management by execution, growth and capital returns.

MoneyHero’s board now faces a clear choice: defend the standalone strategy with more detail and urgency, or test whether the company is worth more in someone else’s hands.

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Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) CEO Anuar Fariz Fadzil will leave the national digital-economy agency when his current contract ends on 2 October 2026, closing a two-year tenure marked by a sharper focus on artificial intelligence, high-value investment and measurable economic outcomes.

MDEC said in a statement that Anuar had informed its board he would not seek a contract renewal and intends to pursue opportunities outside the organisation.

The announcement gives the agency a long runway to manage leadership transition at a time when Malaysia is trying to position itself as one of Southeast Asia’s more credible hubs for AI, digital services, data infrastructure and technology talent.

Also Read: Malaysia’s digital economy’s second wave looks nothing like the first

The departure is significant because MDEC sits at the centre of Malaysia’s digital-economy agenda. Its work touches foreign investment, local tech company growth, digital exports, talent development and the Malaysia Digital status programme, which supports companies operating in the country’s digital economy. In a region where governments are competing to attract cloud providers, semiconductor investments, AI labs and regional headquarters, continuity at such agencies matters.

A transition at a sensitive moment

MDEC chairman Ganesh Kumar Bangah thanked Anuar for his service, saying he had “led MDEC with both head and heart”. Ganesh said Anuar brought “judgement, candour” and commitment to the agency, while pushing it to measure its work by tangible outcomes.

That emphasis on outcomes became a central part of Anuar’s tenure. From 2025 to August 2026, MDEC secured close to US$44 billion in digital investments from more than 1,000 Malaysia Digital status companies, according to the agency. These investments are expected to generate more than 42,000 high-value jobs for Malaysians.

Those figures are large, but the more important question for Malaysia is how much of the investment converts into durable local capability. Across Southeast Asia, governments have become increasingly successful at announcing digital investments. The harder task is ensuring that capital produces skilled jobs, strengthens domestic firms, creates exportable technology and avoids becoming merely real estate for data centres or outsourced service operations.

Also Read: From paddy fields to small shops, Malaysia maps an inclusive AI future

Anuar’s stated focus was to move MDEC in that direction. The agency said he anchored its performance on jobs, exports, revenue and investments, while repositioning MDEC as Malaysia’s specialist digital implementation agency.

The AI Nation 2030 push

One of Anuar’s most visible priorities was MDEC’s drive towards AI Nation 2030, Malaysia’s ambition to become an inclusive, trusted and globally competitive AI-driven economy by the end of the decade.

That goal reflects a broader regional race. Singapore has long had a head start in AI policy, cloud infrastructure and enterprise adoption. Indonesia is using its large domestic market to attract digital investment. Vietnam has built momentum around engineering talent and software exports. Thailand and the Philippines are also trying to move beyond traditional outsourcing into higher-value digital services.

Malaysia’s pitch sits somewhere in the middle: strong connectivity, a multilingual workforce, a sizeable base of shared-services operations, competitive costs compared with Singapore, and growing investor interest in data centres and advanced manufacturing. But to stand out, it needs more than infrastructure. It needs local companies capable of building and deploying technology, talent that can work with AI systems, and regulatory trust around data and digital services.

This is where MDEC’s role becomes more than promotional. Agencies such as MDEC are expected to translate national plans into programmes companies can actually use. Under Anuar, MDEC prepared for responsibilities under the Malaysia Digital 2030 action plan, which focuses on AI adoption, high-value digital investments, industry transformation, talent development and the growth of “Made by Malaysia” technologies.

The phrase “Made by Malaysia” is important. Like many Southeast Asian economies, Malaysia wants to be more than a destination for foreign technology. It wants local firms to create intellectual property, serve regional markets and become part of global digital supply chains.

From activity to accountability

In his statement, Anuar said leading MDEC had been “one of the greatest privileges” of his professional life. He framed his tenure around a shift from activity to impact.

“I wanted us to be judged not simply by the number of activities we announced but by the results we delivered for the country, for industry and for the rakyat,” he said, using the Malay term for citizens. “Everything we have achieved belongs to the extraordinary people of MDEC and to our partners across the technology ecosystem who believed in our mission.”

Also Read: Malaysia fines, Singapore funds: How two governments are forcing SEA’s second digital wave

The remark points to a persistent challenge in public-sector digital programmes. Startup events, memoranda of understanding, accelerator launches and investment announcements are common across the region. What founders and investors often want, however, is less ceremony and more execution: faster approvals, better talent pipelines, clearer incentives, access to customers and consistent policy direction.

Malaysia has several strengths on which to build. Its digital economy already includes fintech, e-commerce, cybersecurity, animation, gaming, software services and electronics-related technology. The country is also benefiting from renewed interest in Johor and the Klang Valley as data-centre and cloud-infrastructure locations, partly because of proximity to Singapore and access to land and power.

But the country faces constraints too. Competition for AI and engineering talent is intense. Local startups still struggle with later-stage funding compared with peers in Singapore and Indonesia. And as more global technology companies enter Malaysia, policymakers will need to ensure that local small and medium-sized enterprises can adopt new tools rather than be left behind by them.

What comes next for MDEC

Anuar said that after “considerable reflection”, he decided the completion of his contract was the right time to pursue new opportunities outside MDEC.

“This has not been an easy decision precisely because MDEC, our people and our mission have come to mean so much to me,” he said. “I leave with immense pride in what we have accomplished together and with complete confidence in MDEC’s future.”

For MDEC, the next phase will be about sustaining momentum while avoiding drift during the leadership transition. The agency will need to continue courting digital investments, but also prove that those commitments translate into high-value work for Malaysians. It will also have to keep industry confidence as AI regulation, data governance and digital trade become more central to economic policy.

Also Read: Malaysia’s OSKVI and Affin Hwang move into venture debt with Pothos Fund I

The timing gives MDEC’s board and the government room to plan succession carefully. The choice of the next CEO will signal whether Malaysia intends to deepen Anuar’s execution-led approach or recalibrate the agency’s priorities.

Either way, Anuar’s exit will come at a moment when Malaysia’s digital ambitions are becoming more concrete. The challenge for MDEC is to ensure that the foundations laid during his tenure continue to produce outcomes after he leaves the building.

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In July 2011, a 27-year-old Stanford dropout secured a 10-minute slot with George Shultz at the Hoover Institution. The meeting ran two and a half hours. Before the month was out, the former secretary of state had joined the Theranos board, won over, he told Fortune, by her “purity of motivation.” Nothing said in that room could be tested.

Across the country, Katalin Karikó had the opposite problem. She had spent years at the University of Pennsylvania producing evidence that messenger RNA could be modified to slip past the body’s immune alarm. Penn demoted her in 1995 after her grant applications kept failing. The 2005 paper that would later win her a Nobel Prize drew, in her words, no interest.

One had a story and no proof. The other had proof and could not get the room.

I have spent decades on the investor side of that table: in banking, inside a global corporation and later running an asset manager in Hong Kong. Founders arrived with more evidence than any committee could digest: patents, market studies, customer logos, 30-page decks. The uncomfortable pattern was that the weight of the evidence rarely decided whom I wanted to see a second time.

The research suggests I was typical. When Paul Gompers and three co-authors surveyed 885 venture capitalists for the Journal of Financial Economics, 47 per cent called the management team the most important factor in a deal; only 37 per cent put business model, product or market first. DocSend’s data shows investors spend under four minutes on a deck. And decades of deception studies, as Timothy Levine has documented, put human accuracy at telling truth from lies at about 54 per cent, a shade better than a coin toss.

The con man grasped this long before venture capital existed. In 1849 the New York Herald reported the arrest of William Thompson, a genteel stranger who struck up conversations on Manhattan streets, then asked whether the gentleman had confidence enough to lend him his watch until tomorrow. Many did, assuming he was an old acquaintance they had forgotten. The paper called him the “Confidence Man.” Thompson carried no evidence at all. He supplied familiarity and let his victims supply the rest.

Also Read: Asian investors aren’t choosing between crypto and TradFi anymore

A century and a half later Rudy Kurniawan, a young Indonesian in Los Angeles, added the missing piece. He poured rare Burgundy for America’s most seasoned collectors, who nicknamed him “Dr. Conti,” and in 2006 an auction of his cellar fetched a record US$24.7 million. Many bottles had been refilled with cheaper wine at his home. The evidence sat in the glass, and the experts drank it.

That is the sequence investors actually run: attention, then recognition, then trust, then a hypothesis, and only then evidence. Within minutes, it takes shape: this founder may be exceptional. What follows is often read as confirmation. Evidence does not create attention. It validates a belief already forming.

Founders, especially technical ones, get this backwards. They treat the first meeting as compressed due diligence, and it is not. The investor is deciding whether there is a hypothesis worth diligencing at all, and a patent cannot do that job. Neither can a TAM slide or a customer list. They answer questions the investor has not yet decided to ask. The failure is sharpest in Asia, where many of the strongest companies build things that take a paragraph to explain: surgical robots, diagnostics, industrial software. By slide 14, a verdict has formed, and the remaining slides rarely overturn it.

The first meeting and diligence do different jobs. The meeting answers why should I care? Diligence answers why should I believe you? Founders who spend the first meeting on the second question seldom reach the second meeting.

Also Read: Why Singapore investors hold more Apple than Singtel, and why it should worry you

The con artist exploits the same gap from the other side, corrupting evidence after belief has formed. Charlie Javice told JPMorgan her student-aid startup, Frank, had 4.25 million users; it had about 300,000, and prosecutors said she paid a college friend US$18,000 to fabricate the rest. The bank paid US$175 million anyway; the judge who later sentenced her said JPMorgan had “a lot to blame themselves” for.

I met Gibran Huzaifah in Jakarta in eFishery’s earliest days, and have written about him before. His story was among the best in Southeast Asian venture: a small-scale fish farmer whose smart feeders would modernise Indonesia’s ponds. It carried SoftBank, Temasek and Malaysia’s public pension fund KWAP to a US$1.4 billion valuation. A forensic audit later traced two sets of books back to 2018; for the first nine months of 2024, eFishery reported US$752 million in revenue against roughly US$157 million in reality. Neither Frank nor eFishery lacked sophisticated investors or due diligence. Fabricated numbers survived both.

Even inside Theranos, evidence lost to belief. When Tyler Shultz told his grandfather the lab’s technology did not work, the statesman sided with Holmes. “He didn’t believe me,” Tyler later told NPR.

The same psychology demands opposite discipline from each side of the table. Founders must earn attention before they offer proof. Investors must doubt hardest at the moment attention turns into belief. The better the story, the more dangerous ordinary diligence becomes. Levine’s own work points to the fix. In one 2014 experiment, five experienced US federal agents allowed to question subjects freely identified deception correctly in 87 of 89 interviews. Don’t read the founder better. Change how you test the claim.

The lesson is not to imitate the con. It is to understand the sequence it exploits. A con artist asks you to believe before you verify. A weak founder asks you to verify before giving you any reason to care.

Karikó’s evidence found its audience. It took a pandemic.

Look at your deck. How many of its slides answer a question no investor has yet decided to ask?

—

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

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

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

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For companies selling, hiring or operating across multiple countries, the promise of going global often runs into a very old problem: banking still behaves as if borders are hard walls. Opening local accounts can require entities, paperwork and long waits. Payments move through correspondent banks. Foreign exchange fees are not always clear. Finance teams end up stitching together banks, payment providers, cards, spreadsheets and treasury tools just to keep money moving.

Limited, a San Francisco-based fintech startup founded in 2024, is trying to simplify that stack. The company has grown its seed round to US$18.5 million less than ten months after launch, after existing investor Third Prime preempted the round. Singapore-based 1982 Ventures participated through 1982 Ventures Fund II, joining new backers ParaFi Capital, Pharsalus Capital, Digital Currency Group and Onigiri Capital.

Also Read: Nium acquires Cypher as fiat and stablecoin payments converge

Existing investors North Island Ventures, which led Limited’s original seed round, The House Fund and Collab+Currency also returned. Early backers Arche Capital and SevenX Ventures remain on board.

Limited offers what it describes as a global business account for multinational companies. Its platform provides business accounts across the US, EU, UK, Latin America and Africa, and supports payments to more than 170 countries. It also offers local-currency payouts in more than 60 currencies, corporate cards, spend controls, accounting integrations and stablecoin rails for real-time transfers.

The company is not a ban but a fintech building the layer that helps businesses access accounts, move money and manage spending across jurisdictions.

“Customer demand pulled this round forward,” said Hussein Ahmed, founder and CEO of Limited. “We are a lean team with strong revenue growth, so this capital is about accelerating what is already working: senior hires across go-to-market, operations and compliance, more local corridors, and deeper treasury features for larger, multi-entity companies.”

The cross-border finance gap

Limited’s pitch is straightforward: international companies still face a fragmented financial system. A business operating across Mexico, Dubai and Hong Kong, for example, may need to work with local banks in each market, manage slow wire transfers, absorb unclear foreign exchange spreads and reconcile multiple systems.

That problem is familiar in Southeast Asia. Startups in Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia often expand regionally earlier than their US or European peers because home markets can be smaller or more fragmented. Even before they become large enterprises, many need to pay overseas suppliers, receive revenue from foreign customers, manage remote teams and move capital between entities.

Also Read: Circle to acquire Tazapay for US$400M as USDC push moves into cross-border payments

The challenge becomes sharper for companies with ambitions beyond the region. A Singapore-headquartered startup selling into the US, hiring in Latin America and sourcing from China may quickly outgrow a domestic business bank account. Traditional banks can serve these needs, but onboarding, compliance checks and account opening across markets can be slow. Newer fintech platforms are trying to win customers by collapsing that complexity into one interface.

This is where Limited wants to compete. Its model combines local accounts, cross-border payments, corporate cards and spend management, while also using stablecoin rails for faster transfers. Stablecoins are digital tokens designed to track the value of fiat currencies such as the US dollar. In business payments, advocates argue that they can reduce settlement times, especially where traditional banking rails are slow or expensive. The trade-off is that companies still need to manage regulatory, compliance and counterparty risks carefully.

Why 1982 Ventures is backing the company

For 1982 Ventures, the investment fits its focus on fintech infrastructure and financial services businesses that can scale across markets. The Singapore-based fund manager has backed Limited through its second fund, placing a Southeast Asian investor on the cap table of a US-headquartered company aiming at a global customer base.

“Hussein is a proven founder who has done this before, and it shows,” said Herston Powers, Founding Managing Partner at 1982 Ventures. “In under ten months, Limited has built business accounts across five regions and payments to 170-plus countries on a very lean team.”

Scott Krivokopich, Founding Managing Partner at 1982 Ventures, added that cross-border money movement remains “stitched together from wires, local banks and FX providers”, and that Limited is trying to put those functions into one account.

The emphasis on founder experience is notable. In fintech, especially in cross-border payments, execution is not only about product design. It also depends on licensing strategy, banking partnerships, compliance processes, transaction monitoring, fraud controls and the ability to support customers across time zones. Scaling too quickly without the right controls can create regulatory and operational risks.

Limited said the fresh capital will go towards senior hires across go-to-market, operations and compliance. It also plans to add more local corridors across Latin America, Asia Pacific and the Middle East and North Africa, and build deeper treasury features for larger companies with multiple entities.

Rivals in a crowded global fintech category

Limited is entering a competitive market with both global and regional rivals. Airwallex, founded in Australia and now a major player in Asia Pacific, offers multi-currency accounts, cards and international payments for businesses. Wise Platform and Wise Business are widely used for cross-border transfers and multi-currency accounts. Revolut Business targets companies with accounts, cards and foreign exchange tools, while Payoneer serves many exporters, marketplaces and digital businesses.

Also Read: SBI joins dtcpay’s US$25M round to bridge Japan, SEA stablecoin corridors

In Southeast Asia, Aspire has built a regional business finance platform for startups and SMEs, while Singapore’s Thunes focuses on cross-border payment infrastructure. Limited’s differentiation will depend on how well it can combine global account access, stablecoin-enabled settlement, compliance and treasury tools in a way that is reliable enough for larger multinational customers.

A broader shift in business banking

The round also points to a broader movement in fintech. The first wave of neobanks focused heavily on consumers and small businesses. The next opportunity may sit in the messy financial operations of companies that are global by default.

Remote work, cross-border commerce, global supply chains and digital services have changed how companies operate. A startup can be incorporated in one country, sell into another, hire developers in a third and raise money from investors in a fourth. But the banking infrastructure supporting that company often remains local, manual and slow.

For Southeast Asian founders, this is not an abstract issue. Regional expansion usually means navigating different currencies, regulators, banking norms and payment preferences. A company moving from Singapore into Indonesia, Thailand or the Philippines may need different local partners and workflows in each market. If it expands further into the US, Europe or the Middle East, complexity multiplies.

That makes cross-border finance infrastructure an attractive investment theme, even in a tougher funding environment. Investors have become more selective, but they continue to back fintech companies that solve clear operational problems and can show revenue traction.

Limited has not disclosed customer numbers, revenue figures or valuation. That leaves open the usual questions around early-stage fintech businesses: how defensible the product is, how expensive compliance will become, and whether it can scale without taking on too much operational risk.

Also Read: The end of manual finance? AI agents are coming for startup payments

For now, the company has secured a sizeable Seed round and a group of investors who believe the pain point is large enough to support a global business. The next test is whether Limited can move beyond early demand and become a trusted financial operating layer for companies that no longer fit neatly inside one country’s banking system.

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Samsung Electro-Mechanics is making its largest single-product investment to date, committing US$4.9 billion to expand production of chip-packaging substrates in South Korea and Vietnam as the artificial intelligence boom reshapes demand across the semiconductor supply chain.

In two filings with the Korea Exchange dated September 28, the Samsung Electronics affiliate said it will spend about US$3.1 billion in South Korea and around US$1.8 billion in Vietnam to increase capacity for package substrates, the high-performance boards that connect advanced chips to the wider electronic systems around them.

Also Read: A*STAR and EDB unveil SG Semiconductor as partnerships target AI-era chis

The larger portion will go into new production lines at Samsung Electro-Mechanics’s Sejong plant in central South Korea, where the company will make flip-chip ball grid array substrates, commonly known as FC-BGA. These substrates are used in high-density semiconductor packages for AI accelerators, server processors and other advanced computing chips.

Construction of the South Korean expansion is expected to run until May 2028, with mass production scheduled to begin in September 2028. Separately, Samsung Electro-Mechanics’ Vietnamese subsidiary will expand its package-substrate plant in Vietnam by the end of April 2028.

The investment is sizeable even for a Samsung group company. Samsung Electro-Mechanics said the commitment is equivalent to about 44 per cent of its consolidated equity at the end of 2025, underlining how central advanced package substrates have become to its long-term strategy.

Why packaging now matters more

For years, the most visible part of the semiconductor race centred on smaller transistor sizes and more advanced chip fabrication. That remains important, but AI has pushed another part of the industry into the spotlight: packaging.

As AI models become larger and more computationally demanding, chipmakers need processors that can move huge volumes of data quickly and efficiently. That depends not only on the chip itself, but also on the substrate and package architecture that connect processors, memory and other components.

FC-BGA substrates are especially important for high-performance chips because they allow dense electrical connections, better signal performance and improved heat management. In simple terms, they are the foundation that lets powerful chips communicate with the rest of the system without bottlenecks.

Demand is being driven by AI accelerators used in data centres, as well as high-end server central processing units and graphics processing units. The rise of generative AI has led cloud providers and technology companies to spend heavily on computing infrastructure, creating pressure across the semiconductor value chain, from foundries and memory suppliers to equipment makers and packaging specialists.

Samsung Electro-Mechanics is trying to position itself in that chain. The company already makes electronic components including multilayer ceramic capacitors, camera modules and semiconductor package substrates. With this investment, it is making a clearer bet that AI-related packaging will be one of its main growth engines over the next decade.

Vietnam’s role in the semiconductor supply chain

The Vietnam portion of the investment is particularly relevant for Southeast Asia. Samsung Electro-Mechanics has been building up package-substrate production in Vietnam since 2021, adding to Samsung’s broader manufacturing footprint in the country.

Also Read: Thailand targets US$80B semiconductor push as it moves beyond assembly

Vietnam has become one of Southeast Asia’s most important electronics production hubs, helped by its labour force, export-oriented industrial zones and deepening role in global supply chains. Samsung is already one of the country’s largest foreign investors, with major smartphone and electronics operations there. A larger package-substrate plant adds another layer to that relationship, moving Vietnam further into higher-value electronics manufacturing.

For Southeast Asia, the significance goes beyond one factory. Governments across the region are trying to attract more semiconductor and advanced manufacturing investment as companies diversify supply chains beyond China and seek resilience after pandemic-era disruptions. Malaysia has long been strong in chip assembly and testing, Singapore remains a key node for semiconductor equipment and manufacturing, and Vietnam is trying to climb from electronics assembly into more specialised semiconductor-related production.

Samsung Electro-Mechanics’s expansion does not turn Vietnam into an AI chipmaking hub overnight. Substrates are only one part of a complex industry that includes wafer fabrication, advanced packaging, memory, equipment, chemicals and design. But the investment strengthens Vietnam’s claim as a serious electronics manufacturing base at a time when AI hardware demand is redrawing global supply chains.

It may also deepen the supplier ecosystem around Samsung’s Vietnamese operations. Large anchor investments often attract materials providers, logistics firms, automation specialists and component suppliers. For local companies, the challenge will be moving beyond basic support services into higher-specification manufacturing and engineering work.

Korea keeps the most advanced lines at home

While Vietnam gets a major expansion, the larger investment remains in South Korea. That is not surprising. Advanced substrate production requires precision manufacturing, tight process control and close coordination with customers building cutting-edge processors.

Also Read: Malaysia’s chip suppliers face rising pressure to prove cyber resilience

South Korea’s semiconductor ecosystem gives Samsung Electro-Mechanics access to engineering talent, materials suppliers and proximity to Samsung Electronics, one of the world’s biggest chip and electronics companies. Keeping the largest FC-BGA push in Sejong also reflects a broader pattern in the chip industry: companies may internationalise parts of production, but the most sensitive or technically demanding capacity often stays close to home.

The investment also lands amid intense competition among governments to secure advanced semiconductor supply chains. The US, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the EU have all pushed policies to support domestic chip capabilities. For Korea, expanding advanced materials and packaging capacity is important because its semiconductor strength has traditionally been associated with memory chips and manufacturing scale. AI has made the wider supply chain more strategically important.

Rivals are also chasing the AI packaging boom

Samsung Electro-Mechanics is not alone in chasing this market. Japan’s Ibiden and Shinko Electric Industries are major suppliers of high-end package substrates and have benefited from demand linked to advanced processors. Taiwan’s Unimicron and Nan Ya PCB are also significant players in IC substrates, while Austria-headquartered AT&S has invested heavily in high-end substrates used in servers and data centres. In South Korea, LG Innotek and Daeduck Electronics also operate in related substrate segments.

The competitive question is whether Samsung Electro-Mechanics can scale capacity while meeting the exacting quality requirements of AI chip customers, where yields, reliability and long qualification cycles matter as much as headline investment size.

A long-term bet, not a quick AI trade

The timeline shows this is not an immediate revenue boost. Construction and expansion will run through 2028, meaning Samsung Electro-Mechanics is betting that demand for AI processors and server infrastructure will remain strong well beyond the current investment cycle.

That is a reasonable but not risk-free assumption. AI infrastructure spending has surged, led by hyperscale cloud providers and large technology companies. Yet semiconductor cycles can turn quickly if customers overbuild capacity, delay data-centre projects or shift architectures. Package substrates also require significant upfront capital, and returns depend on securing long-term orders from major chip customers.

Also Read: Southeast Asia’s chip-hub ambition is colliding with its chip-smuggling problem

Still, Samsung Electro-Mechanics’ move highlights a crucial point about the AI economy: the winners will not only be model developers or chip designers. Much of the value will sit in the less visible infrastructure that makes AI computing possible — substrates, memory, power components, cooling, testing and manufacturing equipment.

For Vietnam and Southeast Asia, the investment is another sign that the region is becoming more embedded in the hardware supply chain behind AI. For Samsung Electro-Mechanics, it is a high-stakes attempt to capture a deeper role in the next phase of semiconductor growth.

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Anthropic has told prospective investors that it is growing at a pace few companies have matched, losing money at a scale few could survive, and building a product that could pose an existential threat to humanity. The prospectus behind what could become the largest IPO on record shows revenue rising twelvefold to nearly US$4.6 billion in 2025, while an operating loss topped US$8 billion as operating expenses approached US$13 billion.

The trajectory has steepened since: second-quarter 2026 revenue reached US$11.5 billion, and the company is on course for a second consecutive quarter of adjusted operating profit. Backers believe it could list above US$2 trillion, more than twice its US$965 billion May valuation.

The filing details plans to spend US$518 billion on cloud, compute and infrastructure, and flags that two customers generated nearly a quarter of last year’s revenue. Close to a third of the document covers risk factors, including model behaviour such as resisting shutdown, manipulating information and conduct resembling blackmail.

For Southeast Asian founders and investors, the listing will set a public benchmark for frontier-AI valuations and compute economics, and a reminder that the companies supplying the region’s AI stack now describe safety as a material business risk.

REGIONAL

GoTo shares drop 14% after Indonesia scraps price floor: Indonesia’s decision to remove the stock price floor triggered an immediate sell-off in GoTo, one of the country’s most closely watched listed tech companies, raising fresh concerns about retail investor protections.

Governance gaps slowing cloud and regtech adoption: KPMG: A KPMG Singapore report finds that unclear internal accountability and weak data governance frameworks are the primary barriers preventing financial institutions across the region from scaling cloud and regtech solutions.

IFC takes US$20M stake in Axiata-backed Boost to scale digital lending: The World Bank Group’s private-sector arm brings development-finance discipline to a Malaysian fintech tied to Boost Bank, Axiata’s venture with RHB, as regulators scrutinise how lenders underwrite thin-file SMEs.

VinFast folds R&D spin-off back in, lifting charter capital to US$8.2B: Manufacturing arm VFTP will absorb Tuong Lai‘s assets and debts, a year after the 2025 carve-out moved factories and liabilities off the Nasdaq-listed carmaker’s books. VinFast took 42% of Vietnam’s August car sales.

Temasek buys 9% of Italy’s FSI in push for European mid-market deals: The stake sits in the US$5.7B manager’s management company, alongside commitments to future funds, as Temasek aims to deploy US$15.9B-19.3B across EMEA by 2029 after investing US$14.8B in two years.

Igloo cuts net loss 60% as revenue climbs 46% with costs held flat: The Singapore embedded-insurance platform posted SGD80.9M (US$63M) in FY2025 revenue and a US$6.7M loss, and targets adjusted EBITDA breakeven by end-2026, though it has not disclosed margins, cash or claims ratios.

1982 Ventures joins Limited’s US$18.5M seed for cross-border banking: Third Prime pre-empted the round for the San Francisco fintech, which offers business accounts across five regions, payouts in 60-plus currencies and stablecoin rails; it will add corridors in Asia Pacific and the Middle East.

Japan’s Kawaijuku backs Do Ventures Fund II for Vietnam education push: The Tokyo education group’s undisclosed commitment gives it a window on Vietnamese startups for future partnerships and direct deals; the Ho Chi Minh City VC’s first fund targeted US$50M with NAVER, Sea and Vertex backing.

Antom reshuffles SEA leadership to knit 2C2P and DOKU into one stack: Ant International’s merchant-payments unit named DOKU co-founder Nabilah Alsagoff regional product head, ex-DOKU CEO Chris Yeo Philippines head and Himelda Renuat DOKU CEO, pursuing a unified product roadmap across its regional brands.

INTERVIEWS AND FEATURES

Korea’s Autonomous A2Z bets on fixed-route shuttles, not robotaxis: The full-stack Level 4 developer, first Korean firm to clear Singapore LTA’s Milestone 1, ran a Grab staff shuttle pilot and signed a US$6.8M UAE supply deal; its CSO explains why localisation is the hard part.

INTERNATIONAL

Peak XV lifts Surge seed cheques to US$5M as the Series A bar rises: The firm put over US$50M into its 18-startup Surge 12 cohort; 13 target global markets though more than half are India-based, and Rajan Anandan says deeptech founders are raising bigger seed rounds.

Meta launches enterprise AI unit, poaches MongoDB CEO CJ Desai to lead: Meta Enterprise Platform will sell Muse, Meta Business Agent, Muse API and Muse Code to companies, a bid to monetise heavy AI spending; MongoDB shares fell over 17% on the abrupt exit.

Blue Fire AI closes US$9M round as AM-One takes stake in Mizuho tie-up: AM-One, which manages over US$500B, will offer equity products built on the startup’s neuro-symbolic decision engine in Japan, a partnership model Southeast Asian AI-fintechs selling into asset management may need to copy.

TikTok settles Alabama addiction case for at least US$100M: The payout could reach US$300M under certain conditions, and TikTok will impose a two-hour daily limit for minors plus overnight and filter curbs, weeks after a US$400M child-privacy settlement with the DOJ.

CYBERSECURITY

OpenAI’s misalignment log reveals a DNS sandbox escape and AI ‘worms’: The new site lists nine incidents, including a model that smuggled a GitHub token and self-replicating prompt injections; Axios reports major labs have logged up to 10,000 cases of models exceeding evaluator instructions.

Truecaller opens web Scam Checker, with Southeast Asia on its roadmap: The free tool needs no sign-in and checks numbers, links and messages against community reports and risk data, launching in India first as telcos, Apple and Google chip away at its caller-ID business.

FBI tells staff ShinyHunters breach exposed their personal data: The group exploited an Oracle PeopleSoft flaw behind the FBIJobs.gov portal, reportedly taking medical and psychiatric records too; a Lawfare analyst calls it a counterintelligence disaster exposing personnel to foreign profiling.

SEMICONDUCTOR

VSMC opens US$7.8B Singapore fab in record time for specialty chips: The Vanguard-NXP venture’s Tampines plant will make 44,000 wafers a month on 40-130nm nodes by 2029 for automotive and industrial uses, creating about 1,600 jobs, three-quarters of them professional or technical.

Samsung Electro-Mechanics steers US$1.8B of AI chip bet to Vietnam: The US$4.9B plan, its largest single-product investment and 44% of its equity, keeps advanced FC-BGA lines in Sejong, Korea, while expanding the Vietnam substrate plant by April 2028 as AI accelerators drive packaging demand.

Thailand approves US$80B chip strategy with an 86,600-worker target: The three-phase plan bets on photonics, power chips and sensors, yet the headline figure rose over US$6B since January without a new fab; BOI applications worth US$27.2B are pledges, not capital spent.

Singapore brands its chip sector SG Semiconductor, backed by US$626M: A*STAR and EDB launched the national identity with partnerships spanning Applied Materials, KLA, STATS ChipPAC and GlobalFoundries in packaging, photonics and yield; the test is whether R&D turns into manufacturable technology.

AI

AMD buys Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs for US$8.2B to bet on physical AI: The spatial-intelligence lab builds models that generate and simulate 3D worlds for robotics; Li becomes AMD’s chief scientist reporting to Lisa Su, giving the chipmaker in-house insight into next-generation AI workloads.

OpenAI shelves Astra 6.1 after model shows higher levels of deception: Safety chief Saachi Jain told the WSJ it tested poorly on alignment; critics argue the industry’s safety push may also entrench frontier labs at the expense of smaller rivals.

Nvidia pitches hardware guardrails to keep rogue AI agents in the box: Its Open Agent Safety Platform pairs OpenShell software with Sentry, a monitor on BlueField-4 chips that quarantines escaping agents; Anthropic and Microsoft signed on, OpenAI did not, and Nvidia opposes a development slowdown.

Ropedia opens its physical-AI data kit to university researchers: The NTU spin-off’s head-mounted HOMIE Gen2 records video, motion and depth as people handle objects for robotics and world-model research; its academic network includes Princeton and Carnegie Mellon.

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

AI safety is shifting from tech policy to national security: Shawn Balakrishnan reads UK calls to ban superintelligence, and Amodei, Altman and Musk backing a slower frontier, as signs of looming capability-based rules; Singapore’s AI assurance work could help shape verification standards.

SIA runs 160 AI apps; the harder question is what they may do: John Tan urges airlines to govern the point where AI recommendations become transactions, via authority registers, human checkpoints and tamper-evident logs, while keeping safety-critical systems under statutory oversight.

Meta’s Muse agent threatens brands built on reach and habit: SOMIN’s Aleks Farseev argues AI agents pick the brand that plainly answers a stated need, leaving a sponsored slot beneath; WhatsApp-heavy Southeast Asia, used to delegating via super-apps, may feel it first.

Singapore funds scale-ups with substance, not company registrations: Gerald Yap says foreign founders should pick their Singapore strategy before the grant, noting EDB’s RIS(C) and Refundable Investment Credit reward R&D and hiring, while EnterpriseSG schemes need 30% local ownership.

Your startup’s rival for VC money may be the fund’s own portfolio: Jun Yan notes only four SEA-focused VC funds closed in 2025, down from 33 in 2023, so managers weigh each new cheque against follow-on reserves for companies they already own.

SEA’s next unicorn may be a one-person company, not the next Grab: Astrid Dang argues AI agents let lean teams in Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines build products once reserved for well-funded Silicon Valley firms, as investors swap scale metrics for revenue per employee.

Past 1.5°C, Southeast Asian firms must fund adaptation, not pledges: Adam Goulston cites SM Investments’ climate-driven data-centre exit and ACEN’s early coal retirement to argue verifiable capital spending, not net-zero banners, separates real ESG from theatre; resilient infrastructure returns about US$4 per dollar.

Bitget hack and 5% yields put Bitcoin’s US$82,000 support to the test: Anndy Lian links the selloff to a US$387.5M exchange theft possibly tied to Lazarus and a US$120M long liquidation wave; a daily close below US$82,000 could open a slide to US$77,000.

Bitcoin dominance at 58.5% keeps a full altseason on hold: With ETF inflows of up to US$3B pulling capital into Bitcoin first, Anndy Lian says the Altcoin Season Index at 57-70 signals selective rotation; he wants dominance below 55% and the index above 75.

Why credential-free outsiders may win in signal intelligence: Faheem Aizat Kamsan profiles a Singaporean paramedic building a timestamped, proof-logged signal platform for retail users, arguing institutions’ real moat was timing and that it is eroding.

The post Ecosystem Roundup: Anthropic’s IPO filing: 12x revenue, US$8B loss and an extinction risk appeared first on e27.

Artificial intelligence is moving deeper into asset management, but not only through chatbots, research summaries or back-office automation. The bigger question is whether AI can help investment firms do what has become increasingly difficult in public markets: find differentiated returns at scale.

Blue Fire AI, a technology company focused on AI-driven investment management, is making that bet in Japan through a strategic commercial agreement with Mizuho Financial Group and Asset Management One (AM-One).

As part of the collaboration, AM-One will take a minority equity stake in Blue Fire AI, closing the company’s latest funding round with US$9 million in aggregate commitments.

Also Read: Why Japan’s booming AI market is harder to crack than it looks

The deal links Blue Fire AI with one of Japan’s largest financial groups and an asset manager with more than US$500 billion in assets under management. AM-One plans to offer new equity investment products powered by Blue Fire AI’s proprietary neuro-symbolic AI decision engine to institutional and retail clients in Japan.

The companies did not disclose the size of AM-One’s stake or Blue Fire AI’s valuation.

For Blue Fire AI, the partnership provides a route into one of the world’s largest pools of managed capital. For Mizuho and AM-One, it is a move to strengthen active management at a time when the industry is under pressure from passive investing, lower fees and growing scepticism over whether traditional stock-picking can consistently outperform benchmarks.

Why AI matters in active management

Active fund managers have always sold judgement: the ability to analyse companies, understand markets and identify mispriced securities before others do. The problem is that markets have become faster, information is more abundant, and many strategies that once produced excess returns have become crowded.

This has pushed asset managers to look for structural advantages. Scale helps. Proprietary data helps. So does technology that can process more information than human teams can handle on their own.

Blue Fire AI says its system enables portfolio managers to perform bottom-up fundamental analysis at scale, identify overvalued securities and generate repeatable investment insights. Bottom-up analysis refers to studying individual companies — their financials, competitive position, valuation and prospects — rather than simply making top-down calls on sectors or economies.

Also Read: AI governance is moving from promises to proof

The company describes its technology as a neuro-symbolic AI decision engine. In simple terms, neuro-symbolic AI combines the pattern recognition associated with machine learning and neural networks with more structured reasoning systems. In investment management, the appeal is that such systems may be able to analyse large volumes of data while still offering a more explainable framework than purely black-box models.

That explainability matters. Institutional investors, regulators and investment committees are unlikely to be comfortable with strategies that cannot be interrogated. Asset managers using AI need to show not only that a model works, but also why it reaches certain conclusions, how risks are controlled and how decisions fit within fiduciary responsibilities.

Blue Fire AI says it has spent ten years developing its technology and has a seven-year live investment track record. That history is important in an industry where many AI claims remain untested across cycles.

Japan’s asset management opening

The partnership comes at a significant moment for Japan’s financial industry. The country has been trying to make better use of household savings, encourage investment and strengthen Tokyo’s role as a global financial centre. Policy changes such as the expansion of Nippon Individual Savings Accounts have helped push more retail money into markets, while corporate governance reforms have drawn renewed foreign investor interest in Japanese equities.

At the same time, Japan’s asset managers face the same pressures seen globally. Passive funds and exchange-traded funds have reduced fees across the industry. Large global firms have used scale to compete aggressively. Retail and institutional clients are asking harder questions about performance, cost and differentiation.

AM-One, established in 2016 and backed by major Japanese financial institutions, sits at the centre of this shift. With approximately JPY80 trillion (more than US$500 billion) in assets under management across institutional and retail businesses as of December 31, 2025, it has the distribution reach to bring AI-enhanced investment products to a broad client base.

Noriyuki Sugihara, President and CEO of AM-One, said the firm plans to use Blue Fire AI’s capabilities to enhance its investment solutions and make them available through AM-One’s product platform.

“This partnership reflects a shared conviction that the next era of active management will be built by firms willing to combine deep institutional expertise with genuinely differentiated technology,” said Luke Waddington, CEO of Blue Fire AI.

Why Southeast Asia should watch

Although the deal is centred on Japan, it carries lessons for Southeast Asia’s financial ecosystem. Singapore, in particular, has built itself into a regional wealth and asset management hub, with global managers, family offices, private banks and fintech companies using the city-state as a base for Asia.

Also Read: Japan is moving into Southeast Asia faster than the West, and most brands haven’t noticed yet

Across Southeast Asia, asset managers are also facing fee pressure, rising client expectations and the need to offer more sophisticated products. Markets such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia have growing pools of retail investors, pension money and institutional capital, but local managers often compete against global firms with deeper research budgets and technology platforms.

AI could narrow some of that gap if applied carefully. A regional manager covering hundreds of listed companies across Southeast Asia may not have the same analyst headcount as a global asset manager. Tools that scale fundamental research, flag valuation anomalies and organise company-level data could become useful, especially in less-covered markets where information is fragmented.

But the Japan example also shows that distribution and trust remain critical. Blue Fire AI is not entering the market alone; it is partnering with Mizuho and AM-One, institutions with established client relationships and regulatory credibility. Southeast Asian AI-fintech startups aiming to sell into asset management may need similar partnerships with banks, brokerages, insurers or licensed fund managers rather than trying to bypass the existing system entirely.

Rivals in AI investing

Blue Fire AI operates in a growing field of investment technology companies applying AI and data science to portfolio management. Global players such as BlackRock have long used technology platforms, including Aladdin, to support risk and portfolio analytics. Firms such as Two Sigma and AQR have built quantitative investment businesses around data, models and systematic decision-making, though they are not direct product equivalents.

In the AI investment tools market, companies including Boosted.ai, Auquan and Toggle AI provide machine learning-driven research and analytics for investment professionals. In Asia, South Korea’s Qraft Technologies has developed AI-powered investment strategies and exchange-traded funds. Blue Fire AI’s challenge will be to prove that its neuro-symbolic approach can translate into durable performance inside large institutional product platforms.

The next test: performance and governance

The promise of AI in active management is compelling, but the bar is high. Investment products are ultimately judged by performance, risk management, transparency and client outcomes. A model that works in one market regime may struggle in another. Data quality can vary. AI systems can overfit, meaning they appear powerful in historical testing but fail in live markets.

Also Read: StashAway acquires MakeGoodwill to add digital wills to its wealth platform

There are also governance questions. Asset managers must decide how much authority to give AI systems, how human portfolio managers should use model outputs, and how to explain decisions to clients and regulators. For retail investors, the language around AI can easily become marketing unless firms are clear about what the technology does and does not do.

That may be why the partnership between Blue Fire AI and AM-One is framed around combining institutional expertise with differentiated technology, rather than replacing human managers outright. The more realistic future of AI in asset management is not fully autonomous investing, but augmented investment teams that can examine more companies, test more ideas and respond faster to changing market conditions.

Further details of the collaboration are expected later. For now, the agreement gives Blue Fire AI a powerful Japanese partner, gives AM-One a stake in an emerging investment technology platform, and signals that the next fight in active management may be as much about data and AI infrastructure as it is about traditional investment judgement.

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A founder pitched me earlier this year on his semiconductor company. The deck was clean. The market was real. The technology was genuinely differentiated. The Singapore entity was properly incorporated, the cap table looked orderly, and the revenue was growing.

Then I asked him three questions.

Where does your intellectual property legally sit? Who owns the entity that owns it? And if I wire money into your Singapore company tomorrow, what exactly am I buying?

He could not answer any of them cleanly. The IP sat in China. The Singapore entity he was raising on owned almost nothing of substance. The structure he was pitching and the business he was running were two different things, connected mostly by hope.

The raise was over before it started. Not because the company was bad. Because he had prepared the wrong story.

Founders prepare the product story. Investors underwrite the structure story

Most founders raising across borders spend their preparation time on the things they can see: the product, the traction, the market size, the team slide. These matter. But they are not where a cross-border raise actually succeeds or fails.

A domestic investor and a cross-border investor are not doing the same job. A domestic investor backing a Singapore company operating in Singapore can largely take the entity at face value. The company is incorporated where it operates, the revenue is earned where it is booked, the assets sit where the company sits. The investor underwrites the business.

A cross-border investor cannot do that. When the founder is in one jurisdiction, the IP in another, the revenue booked in a third, and the holding company in a fourth, the investor is no longer underwriting the business. They are underwriting the structure. And if the structure does not hold up to scrutiny, the quality of the underlying business becomes irrelevant, because the investor cannot safely own a piece of it.

This is the single most common reason promising Southeast Asian companies fail to close cross-border rounds. Not weak fundamentals. Unprepared structure.

The environment has made this sharper. The eFishery accounting fraud reset diligence standards across the region. Beijing’s unwinding of a two-billion-dollar acquisition of a Chinese-founded, Singapore-headquartered AI company put every cross-border structure under brighter light. Investors who two years ago might have taken a Singapore wrapper at face value now open it and look inside. Founders who have not looked inside it themselves get caught.

Also Read: AI agents could help Southeast Asian firms untangle cross-border payment costs

The questions to be able to answer before you pitch

If you are raising from an investor outside your home jurisdiction, you should be able to answer each of these without hesitation, with documents to back them.

• Where does your IP legally sit, and who owns it?

If your patents, code, or core technology are held by an entity other than the one you are raising on, the investor is buying a company that does not own its own product. This is fixable, but only before the raise, not during diligence.

• Can an investor independently verify your overseas revenue?

Revenue that flows through entities or jurisdictions an investor cannot diligence is revenue an investor will discount to zero. If a meaningful share of your traction sits in a market where contracts, banking, and customers cannot be verified, prepare to prove it or prepare to lose credit for it.

• Who really owns what across your cap table and holding structure?

Layered holding companies, nominee arrangements, and undocumented founder agreements are not red flags because they are illegal. They are red flags because they signal the founder either does not understand their own structure or is hoping the investor will not ask. Both end the conversation.

• Are your intercompany flows arm’s length?

If money moves between your entities in ways that inflate revenue, shift costs, or would not survive a transfer-pricing review, an investor’s lawyers will find it. Find it first.

• What happens to your structure if regulators act?

If a regulator in any jurisdiction you touch changed its stance tomorrow, what happens to your ownership, your IP, and your ability to operate? If you have never asked this question, you are not ready to raise across borders.

None of these are product questions. All of them are structure questions. And the founders who close cross-border rounds are the ones who have answered them before the investor asks.

What this looks like from the other side of the table

For the investors reading this, the same checklist is the discrimination that separates a real cross-border thesis from a hopeful one.

Underwriting a cross-border deal is not about liking the product. It is about being able to answer one question for your own LPs: what, precisely, am I buying, and can I defend my ownership of it if scrutiny comes? A founder who can walk you through their IP ownership, their verifiable revenue, their clean structure, and their regulatory exposure is not just better prepared. They are demonstrating the exact discipline that predicts whether the company can be owned, scaled, and eventually exited across borders.

Also Read: How a cross-border tech team built a fintech MVP in 3 months

The founders who cannot are not necessarily running bad businesses. They are running businesses that have not yet been built to be owned by someone in another jurisdiction. That is a different problem from product-market fit, and capital does not solve it.

This is the lens we apply to every company we look at across the markets we work in. The strongest signal in a cross-border pitch is rarely the product. It is whether the founder has done the structural work to be investable by someone who is not sitting in the same country.

Prepare the story that actually gets underwritten

The semiconductor founder I turned away was not a weak operator. He had built something real. But he had prepared to be evaluated as a product, when he was going to be evaluated as a structure. By the time he understood the difference, the conversation was over.

If you are planning to raise across borders, prepare both stories. The product story gets you the meeting. The structure story gets you the money.

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