Some 680 AI start-ups attracted more than US$2.3 billion of investments across Southeast Asia in the 12 months to June, accounting for 32 per cent of private funding in the region, research from Google, Singapore’s state investor Temasek and management consultancy Bain & Company released on Tuesday shows.
Singapore led the pack, with 495 AI start-ups having secured US$1.31 billion in funding based in the city state, according to the e-Conomy SEA Report 2025.
Florian Hoppe, a partner at Bain, told This Week in Asia he expected the growth to continue. “It’s easy to access Singapore. It’s an East-meets-West place for many people, so we’d expect it to continue as an easy funding hub.”
Pointing to the region’s multiculturalism as a selling point to fuel AI’s growth, Hoppe said: “Asean is extremely resource-rich and has a young and upcoming population. That’s a big upside of Southeast Asian companies, they learn to deal with different environments and potentially scale to a bigger stage globally.”
Fock Wai Hoong, head of Southeast Asia at Temasek, said the region’s ability to adopt technology quickly and the fast pace of AI’s integration in businesses made it an attractive investment destination.
