Tech in Asia

24/12/2025

Singapore banks are racing ahead with AI, but the real test is people.

While AI is streamlining operations and reshaping roles, banks agree jobs won’t disappear overnight. Instead, the future belongs to employees who can work with AI — making upskilling, reskilling, and human judgment more critical than ever.

Learn how Singapore’s banks are racing to deploy AI, what it means for staff on the ground, and why the city is becoming a test bed for new tools.

24/12/2025

Funding Societies’ lending slowed in 2024, but payments are emerging as a stabilizer.

While total loan disbursements dipped, revenue still grew 11.5% on the back of its payments business, losses narrowed, and lending has rebounded strongly in 2025 as rates eased. The fintech now has its sights set on operating cash flow positivity by late 2025.

In 2024, the firm’s revenue grew by 11.5% to US$54.3 million, driven by its payments business.

24/12/2025

🔎📝 This year, the HWWC Business Forum invites regional business leaders to step inside the minds of those who define greatness.

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24/12/2025

🛒📈 AI shopping agents promise automation. But in this region, they raise tough questions about margins, price wars, and how people actually shop.

🤖 The ecommerce industry’s move toward AI shopping agents now looks inevitable; Southeast Asia doesn’t have a fully fledged AI shopping agent yet, but companies are already laying the groundwork, and Paul Srivorakul expects a phased rollout starting with reorders and finding deals.

💸 Many marketplaces are under pressure to become – and remain – profitable, and if consumers increasingly depend on AI shopping agents to hunt for the best deals, it will be hard to avoid the risk of renewed price competition; AI shopping agents are more likely to gain traction for repeat or routine purchases rather than for buying new products.

Dig into who’s better positioned—Shopee or Lazada—and why deep back-end integration across inventory, delivery, and returns matters.
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AI shopping agents promise automation. But in this region, they raise tough questions about margins, price wars, and how people actually shop.

24/12/2025

Line Man Wongnai grew revenue to US$451M in 2024, with strong momentum in on-demand services and fintech — but higher investments in Line Pay pushed net losses up 18%.

As food delivery consolidates in Thailand and fintech scales up, the company is betting that payments and merchant services will power its next phase ahead of a planned 2026 IPO.

Tech in Asia unpacks why the on-demand services firm is targeting “high double-digit” revenue growth this year and how it plans to get there.

23/12/2025

AI isn’t wiping out entry-level jobs in Southeast Asia — but it is redefining them 🤖

📊 Entry-level roles increasingly require AI skills across SEA
💸 Cost barriers slow AI adoption, especially among SMEs
🎓 Graduates who can work confidently with AI have a clear edge

From high costs to lagging digitalization, we explore why SEA employers are still hiring fresh grads instead of letting AI take over entry-level jobs.

23/12/2025

As Gaza falls apart, funds are pouring in. It’s just mostly going to Israel.

Israeli tech firms pulled in nearly 12 billion dollars in funding in the first three quarters of 2025. That’s higher than last year, and more than triple the funding raised for aid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Because when faced with a humanitarian crisis, nothing says priorities quite like venture capital.

In the last 90 days alone, another 6.7 billion dollars flowed in, mostly to cybersecurity, while aid to Gaza struggles to get through.

Israeli tech exits are also booming, jumping 340 percent this year, helped by Google’s casual 32 billion dollar acquisition of Wiz.

And while the world keeps funding Israel, Israeli money is moving globally too, including into Indonesia.

And so, it seems, capital moves fast. Aid? Not so much.

23/12/2025

Southeast Asia’s unicorn club is getting harder to enter 🦄

✨ 26 startups hit US$1B+ valuations in 2021 — only 16 since
📉 Funding has fallen for four straight years amid tougher markets
👀 A handful of unicorns are still eyeing IPOs, despite muted exits

Thunes, Mirxes and Vidio enter the league this year. But unicorns are becoming rare in the region, with only 14 startups reaching billion-dollar valuations sinc

23/12/2025

As bad actors loom, innovation center Hatch aims to help Singapore’s public safety agencies tap into new, cutting-edge tech to stay ahead of the game.

Nimble startups are providing unique solutions to today’s complex public safety challenges.

23/12/2025

🤖💼 Sam Altman says Google had the power to smash OpenAI instantly, yet they failed to act because protecting their massive search revenue was the priority.

🏢 Sam Altman says Google could have “smashed” OpenAI in 2023 but didn’t, adding “Google has probably the greatest business model… and… will be slow to give that up,” so “bolting AI onto the existing way of doing things… [won’t] work as well as… an AI‑first world.”

📈 He claims OpenAI can “really well monetize all the compute” it has — “double the compute” would mean “double the revenue” — and that model 5.2’s “overhang… is so huge… even if you froze the model… a huge amount” of value remains.

Discover how the strength of ChatGPT’s consumer product helps OpenAI win enterprise customers by diving into the full summary.
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Sam Altman says Google had the power to smash OpenAI instantly, yet they failed to act because protecting their massive search revenue was the priority.

23/12/2025

OpenAI is stepping up its India play — fast.

🇮🇳 New hires, a Delhi office, and plans for deeper enterprise and policy engagement
🚀 India is now OpenAI’s 2nd-largest user market globally
⚖️ A proving ground for scale — and a pressure test for local AI startups

We unpack why OpenAI is moving swiftly in India to not just woo users but also to unlock labor and resources to expand its empire.

23/12/2025

🚀💰 Analysts are optimistic about IPO prospects in 2026, but success depends on the right mix of backers, financial performance, and growth prospects.

📈 Superbank’s IPO delivered a much-needed boost, raising US$168 million in an oversubscribed Indonesian debut as its share price jumped 24% and hit its daily limit; in the first 10 months, Southeast Asia logged 102 IPOs that raised US$5.6 billion, 53% higher than the year before.

🤝 Analysts say profitability is now a baseline for going public and that committed backers who stay invested are crucial for long-term share performance; with interest rates dropping and inflation easing, there could be more tech IPOs in the next 12 to 18 months.

Dive into how a 2026 Singapore Exchange–Nasdaq dual-listing bridge and its S$2 billion minimum could shape where Southeast Asian startups list.
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Analysts are optimistic about IPO prospects in 2026, but success depends on the right mix of backers, financial performance, and growth prospects.