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Considering expanding your business in Southeast Asia? Top unicorn and global tech founders reveal why they chose to expand in the region, and how. Read more in our Destination Southeast Asia Report.
With exciting growth industries, from fintech to AI, Southeast Asia’s burgeoning tech ecosystem reached a combined market valuation of $454b in 2024, more than tripling in value over the past five years.
As investment flows into the market, global tech founders from the US, UK, and beyond are looking to Southeast Asia for their business expansion plans.
In our Destination Southeast Asia Report, published in partnership with the Singapore Economic Development Board, the numbers tell a compelling story – SEA-based tech startups have raised close to $90b in the past decade and SEA-headquartered funds are also raising record amounts.
But Southeast Asia is not one homogenous region and founders must navigate a melting pot of diverse languages, cultures, regulations, tax structures, and ways of doing business.
How can you master your SEA expansion? Meet five global tech founders blazing a trail in Southeast Asia to find out.
Olivier Pomel, Datadog: “Southeast Asia is undergoing a massive digital transformation and an explosion of cloud demand.”
Olivier is the Co-Founder and CEO of software unicorn, Datadog, the observability and security platform for cloud applications. Headquartered in New York City and with a regional HQ in Singapore, Datadog listed on the Nasdaq in September 2019 and today boasts a market cap of more than $40b.
Founded: 2010
Country: USA
Stage: Listed on the NASDAQ
Employees: 5,000+
“Consumers in Southeast Asia operate largely on mobile apps and businesses are emerging to serve them and operate from day one in the cloud, leapfrogging the more traditional data centre deployments other large economies went through first.
“Founders looking to expand to Singapore should talk to the local authorities; they’re among the most helpful government-run development offices we’ve dealt with and they can really assist in establishing a presence when starting from scratch. Now, we’re scaling our teams and starting to hire some additional field teams in local SEA markets beyond Singapore.”
David Benigson, Signal AI: “We’re now active in around 10 markets in the Asia-Pacific.”
David is the Co-Founder and CEO of Signal AI, which provides reputation and risk intelligence to companies globally. Signal AI analyses the world’s external data across 225 markets and 100 languages, providing companies with actionable insights designed to spot industry trends, assess emerging risks, and unearth reputational insights.
Founded: 2013
Country: UK
Stage: Series D
Raised: $100m
Employees: 200+
Investors: Highland Europe, MMC Ventures, Hearst Ventures, Mercuri Ventures, Local Globe
“We’re focused on Southeast Asia and especially Singapore. When you expand to a new market, don’t just hire salespeople. Build cross-functional support infrastructure around them; customer success, marketing, legal, and finance. You ultimately have to build a holistic team and have the right combination of skills to make a new office setup successful.
“Southeast Asia is not one homogenous region, so treat expansion thoughtfully. Every Southeast Asian country is a significant economy in its own right, with different languages, cultures, tax structures, requirements, and nuances in how you’re going to be successful.“
Vu Van, ELSA: “There are still untapped markets within the SEA region that offer great potential.”
Vu is the Co-Founder and CEO of ELSA, an AI-powered language learning platform that provides personalised and affordable English-speaking solutions to help individuals improve their language skills and access more job opportunities.
Founded: 2015
Country: USA
Stage: Series C
Raised: $60m
Employees: 200-250
Investors: Gradient Ventures, Monk’s Hill Ventures, UOB Venture Management
“We continue efforts to expand our presence in countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines, where English language learning is in high demand.
“Our team is geographically dispersed and structured in an integrated, cross-functional team framework to allow all voices to be heard across product, marketing, research, engineering, and other teams. By fostering a team with diverse perspectives and expertise, we were also able to navigate the complexities of the SEA markets and drive our expansion efforts.“
Jack Zhang, Airwallex: “Southeast Asia was a piece of the puzzle we needed to establish our global footprint.”
Jack is the CEO and Co-Founder of Airwallex, a leading global financial platform for modern businesses, offering solutions across payments, treasury, spend management, and embedded finance. Airwallex processed more than $80b in global payments in 2023 and serves more than 100,000 businesses worldwide. Airwallex moved its global HQ to Singapore in 2023 and is now expanding into Malaysia and across Southeast Asia.
Founded: 2015
Country: Australia
Stage: Series E+
Raised: $900m+
Employees: 1,400
Investors: Sequoia, DST Global, Greenoaks Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Lone Pine Capital, Square Peg Capital, 1835i Ventures
“Southeast Asia has become a global focal point for cross-border payment growth, both regionally and internationally, and Singapore has the right regulatory framework, customer base, and talent pool to set the foundations for us to expand across SEA. In two years, we’ve already made some strong headway. In 2023, our transaction volume increased by around 500% and our revenue by over 400% in Singapore.
“We plan to invest in talent and increase our headcount in Singapore by more than 20%. In Malaysia, we’ve obtained our remittance licence and are close to obtaining our merchant acquiring licence, which will enable us to expand our offering there. Next, we will continue to expand our offering in the region driven by customer demand, first into Vietnam and then into Indonesia.”
James Hirst, Tyk: “We’re excited by the potential of fintech in SEA.”
James is the Co-Founder and COO of Tyk, which enables modern platform, product, and development teams to design, build, and secure their APIs.
Founded: 2016
Country: UK
Stage: Series B
Raised: $40.5m
Employees: 150+
Investors: SEP, MMC
“We were inspired by the commitment we saw from national governments around smart cities, rapid innovation in the telecom markets, digital citizen services, and other tech-based growth. There was a clear appreciation of the transformative power of technology, backed by a strategic approach to financing new ventures, and we could see significant synergies with organisations across the region. There’s also some serious innovation ramping up in fintech in SEA.
“Network-building is important in SEA. We were deliberate in our approach, considering the existing culture of the business and how we needed to evolve that as we expanded. Also important was an appreciation of the huge influence of the public sector in SEA and the need to factor that into business expansion plans.“
Considering expanding your business in Southeast Asia? Download our Destination Southeast Asia Report for a comprehensive overview of SEA the market and insider insights from the founders who’ve done it.
