FOMO Saturday

Hello reader,

People often say, "The sky's the limit for AI."

It used to sound like a promise. But just a few years ago, the idea of humanoid robots felt like something that belonged in the future - the far future. Now, with AI agents and physical AI inching closer to reality, that future doesn't feel so distant anymore.

The statement cuts both ways, then.

As AI systems become more capable and autonomous, companies are starting to ask where the limits should be. Can AI access customer data? Push code? Approve actions? And if something goes wrong, who is watching closely enough to stop it?

These questions create the market forces behind this week's biggest deals in AI security. Onyx Security has secured US$113 million, while Hush Security has raised US$30 million - both to help companies oversee AI agents.

The sky may be the limit for AI, but within companies, limits are exactly what the tech needs.

You can find all other important investment deals from the last few days in our weekly funding news wrap-up.

Let's dive into the biggest deals that have recently taken place.

-- Lilian

THE BIGGEST DEALS BY MARKET

🇮🇱 Onyx Security builds software to help enterprises secure and govern AI agents. Based in Israel, which is located in West Asia, the firm has secured US$113 million in series B money from Bessemer Venture Partners.

🇨🇳 Delta Intelligence is a China-based AI company focusing on the R&D of humanoid foundation models. It has bagged US$73.5 million in seed funding from undisclosed investors.

🇰🇷 Techtaka is the AI logistics startup behind global integrated logistics platform Argo. Headquartered in South Korea, the firm has bagged US$12.2 million in series C funding from Altos Ventures and Z Venture Capital.

🇦🇪 Based in the United Arab Emirates, Epic Markets is a next-generation broker delivering institutional-grade trading tools and liquidity to retail traders. The startup has secured US$10 million in a pre-seed round from Karatage.

🇯🇵 CLAS is a furniture rental service company that hails from Japan. It has raised US$8.6 million in a bridge round from Panasonic Corporation and SBI Investment.

Here's the complete list of this week's funding chart: 64 deals worth over US$405.9 million.

STARTUPS THAT ARE RAISING FUNDS

Fundraising is hard. To make things slightly easier, we've compiled this list of fundraising startups for our subscribers. Do you run a startup that's raising at the moment or know someone who does? Sign your company up for listing here.

Here's a preview of the startups:

🇸🇬 This Singapore-based startup builds industrial IoT solutions to automate geotechnical and structural sensor monitoring in construction and mining.

🇮🇳 Headquartered in India, this firm runs a platform that connects sports and fitness enthusiasts.

🇺🇸 This US company develops hallucination-free enterprise context infrastructure for more accurate, explainable AI answers.

You can find the full list of fundraising startups in Asia over here.

BEHIND THE GLASSWALL

Fundraising often involves reaching out to several contacts, many of whom founders might not have dealt with before. To provide some transparency to this process, we created Glasswall, a platform for founders to give feedback and recommendations on investors. Check out the full list here.

• ✅︎ "Good VC. Very nice to work with; friendly people; and had a good chat even though they passed." - Read more
• ❌ "Chased us for a year to invest and lots of promises to provide support. Pretty much all empty talk, as they failed to deliver anything." - Read more
• ✅︎ "High conviction, clear communication. Will tell you yes when it's yes, no when it's no - basic but most don't." - Read more

EXCLUSIVE LISTICLES

Lists of most active investors in the region

China | India | Indonesia | Japan | Singapore | Southeast Asia

List of top-funded startups in Asia

China | India | Indonesia | Israel | Japan | Hong Kong | Singapore | South Korea | Vietnam

THOUGHTFUL READS

1️⃣ The AI bill becomes a market

AI was supposed to make firms more efficient. Now a new crop of startups is trying to make the tech less expensive to run. This PitchBook piece asks whether AI cost control is a company category on its own or a feature waiting to be swallowed by bigger platforms.

2️⃣ Outsourced, but not out of your hands

Hiring an AI vendor does not magically transfer the risks that come with the tech. This piece from Harvard Business Review makes a practical point: When AI goes wrong, saying "the vendor did it" may not be much of a defense.

3️⃣ The exit window opens outward

Southeast Asia's tech M&A market is recovering, but the buyer mix reveals something more interesting: Foreign acquirers accounted for most of the region's activity in 2025. Read this Deal Street Asia article to find out more.

4️⃣ Powering the AI appetite

From a policy debate to a startup funding theme, AI's energy appetite is turning nuclear. According to Axios, global investment in nuclear startups has topped US$4.5 billion across 81 companies this year, on track to beat last year's record. This piece dives deeper.

5️⃣ VCs get off the sidelines

Investing in startups is one thing; working for one is another. Read this Sifted article to find out why some VCs are leaving investor roles to join startups themselves.

Today's edition was written by Lilian Tang. It's edited by Mina Deocareza.

EVENTS HAPPENING

In conversation with the co-founder of Supabase Supabase faced this reality head-on as AI-generated databases surged by 600% in a single year, forcing the company to totally rebuild its core platform architecture. Join Paul Copplestone, CEO and co-founder of Supabase, at Tech in Asia Conference as he reveals exactly what broke, what was rebuilt, and how infrastructure must evolve when machines become the primary creators of software. Get your tickets at a 60% discount here.