FOMO Saturday

Hello reader,

With Tech in Asia Conference 2026: Enterprise AI just around the corner, it feels fitting that AI is sprinkled all over this week's funding table.

But while many of the labels read AI, it looks a little more like tech's Chemical X than the whole recipe. It just gives the sugar, spice, and everything nice a little sumtin' sumtin'.

What came out of the lab this week? A mix of cybersecurity, satellites, quantum computing, and robotics. Boy, I wonder what will come out next.

See you at the conference!

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 and M&As that have recently taken place.

-- Lilian

THE BIGGEST DEALS BY MARKET

🇮🇱 Cylake is an AI-native cybersecurity platform providing full visibility, fine-grained policy, and attack prevention in air-gapped sovereign environments. Based in Israel, which is located in West Asia, the firm has bagged US$245 million in a pre-series A round from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Picture Capital, and Redpoint Ventures.

🇮🇳 Pixxel builds hyperspectral Earth observation satellites and Earth-intelligence software. The India-based spacetech startup has raised US$100 million in series C money from Seraphim Capital and Temasek Holdings.

🇨🇳 Juliang Guangqi Computing Technology is a China-based developer and service provider of atomic quantum computing tech. The company has secured US$44.8 million in seed funding from China Reform Holdings Corporation, Dinghe Gaoda, Fosun Capital, Jolmo Capital, Junchenda Capital, Seas Capital, and Xingxiang Investment.

🇯🇵 Algomatic Dynamics is a robotics and physical AI startup headquartered in Japan. It has raised US$32 million in a strategic investment round from DMM.com.

🇸🇦 Based in Saudi Arabia, Syarah is an online automotive marketplace. It has bagged US$12 million in bridge funding from Impact46, Alinma Bank, and AlJazira Capital.

Here's the complete list of this week's funding chart: 76 deals worth over US$713 million.

M&AS

🇮🇱 Based in Israel, Sweep develops an agentic layer for enterprise systems. The firm has been acquired by US enterprise software company ServiceNow for an undisclosed amount.

🇸🇦 PayLink is a domestic payment solutions provider based in Saudi Arabia. It has been acquired by ecommerce giant Salla, though the financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

STARTUP IN THE SPOTLIGHT

AI tool spots red flags in dating profiles and job offers

In an era of deepfakes and AI, it's harder than ever to tell what's real on the internet. Dating and job hunting are two areas particularly prone to fakery, a problem Checkie-AI was founded to tackle.

• The gap: Generative AI makes creating convincing digital fakes increasingly easy, and billions are lost to fraud every year.
• The fix: Checkie-AI's platform offers a second opinion on digital documents and images. It supports PDF or screenshot uploads of things like contracts and dating profiles, analyzing them using optical character recognition and image analysis.
• The pitch: The firm is initially targeting online daters, freelancers, and young renters by offering individual consumers a US$9.99 monthly subscription.

This article is part of our Startup Spotlight series. To get your startup or portco covered, fill out this survey.

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.

• ✅︎ "Awesome process. Smooth and transparent throughout. They were thorough and very clear with feedback. Small team that works really hard." - Read more
• ❌ "Friendly at first but eventually will start to ghost you and not give you an answer." - Read more
• ✅︎ "Super efficient process. Money was wired in quickly. No-nonsense feedback. Never ask you to run your pitch since they have prepared themselves for the sessions. We need more of these ex-founder-led VCs in SEA." - Read more

STOP PROMPTING. START DELEGATING.

A hands-on workshop with OpenAI

What if ChatGPT could do more than answer your prompts?

In this hands-on workshop, Gabriel Chua, developer experience engineer at OpenAI, will show you how to turn ChatGPT into an assistant that actually gets things done. Build a digital assistant, delegate tasks that keep moving while you're away, organize information across the tools you use, and turn repetitive admin into workflows you can reuse.

You'll leave with practical workflows you can put to work immediately and one month of ChatGPT Plus for free.

This session is available to General Pass and Pro Pass holders of the Tech in Asia Conference. Get yours today.

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 Training your replacement

In China, underemployed lawyers, architects, and engineers are taking gig jobs to train AI in their own professions. This Rest of World piece looks at the uncomfortable economics of being paid to teach machines the expertise that makes you valuable in the first place.

2️⃣ ARR you sure?

AI may be making enterprise software easier to adopt but also easier to ditch. According to this TechCrunch piece, 77% of enterprises reassess their AI vendors every six months or continuously, raising questions about just how reliable annual recurring revenue (ARR) is as a metric. ARR? More like ARRgh for investors.

3️⃣ So you think you can sell

Norwest partner Sean Jacobsohn regularly joins sales calls before deciding whether to invest in a company. In this Crunchbase News interview, he explains why selling remains a core CEO skill, even for product and engineering founders.

4️⃣ Old laws, new tricks

It's wild to think that discriminatory local laws can remain buried because there's too much legal code to comb through manually. But thanks to AI, Stanford researchers can now sift through them and flag suspect laws for human review. Find out more in this Stanford HAI piece.

5️⃣ Slop patrol

Pangram builds tools to detect AI-generated text, images, and video. But as AI content becomes harder to spot, who gets to decide what's human and what's not? This Fast Company article digs deeper.

A NEW PLAYBOOK FOR SCALING ASIA

An exclusive luncheon by CKGSB and Tech in Asia

Southeast Asia may look like one market, but scaling across the region means navigating eleven different ones.

Join us as we learn from senior leaders navigating regional growth and expansion:

• Mark Leadercramer, head of GTM - APAC, Canva
• Gavin Teo, general partner, Altara Ventures
• Gina Wong, general manager for ASEAN, Cohere
• Eugene Goh, managing director, JM Vistec System

Taking place on September 15 at Tech in Asia Conference 2026, this exclusive luncheon brings together leaders who have scaled across Southeast Asia to unpack what it takes to build, partner, and win across fragmented markets. Walk away with a clearer view of how to build a lasting advantage across Southeast Asia's diverse markets.

This session is open to Tech in Asia Conference 2026 General, Pro, and VIP pass holders. Register your interest for the luncheon.

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

EVENTS HAPPENING

Scaling AI across teams Move beyond individual AI use and explore what it takes to turn adoption into meaningful business impact. Join Notion for a curated session that brings together senior tech, transformation, operations, and IT leaders to exchange perspectives on scaling AI across teams, identifying high-friction workflows, and measuring impact beyond time saved. This event is open to Tech in Asia Conference 2026 General, Pro, and VIP pass holders, with attendance subject to approval. Register your interest now.

How AI is rewriting the travel journey With only a few days to go until the Tech in Asia Conference, Klook co-founder and CEO Ethan Lin joins us to unpack how AI and social commerce are collapsing the distance between inspiration and action. With 30,000+ creators across 88 markets, Klook sits at the center of this shift, turning the content that people discover in their feeds into experiences they can book. Ethan will share what this means for the future of travel, from how tourists discover where to go to how AI is changing the path to purchase. Join us to see how AI and social commerce are reshaping the journey from discovery to booking.