Favour Capital

Favour Capital Insights – The Next Semiconductor Wave: AI Shifts Demand, Specialization Defines the Market Semiconductors are entering a new growth phase as AI and robotics drive demand for higher hardware performance, while exposing constraints around power, memory, and energy supply. As innovation shifts from production scaling toward compute efficiency, new opportunities are emerging for asset-light, design-led companies. In Southeast Asia, more companies are building around chip design, fabless models, and specialized architectures such as chiplets, photonics, and edge inference. We expect this to create more room for innovation and fundraising opportunities across the semiconductor ecosystem. To learn more, reach out to [email protected] #Semiconductor #ChipDesign #AI

Favour Capital Industry Highlights – The AI-EdTech Maturity Cycle: Navigating the Shift from Platform Enablers to AI-Native Product Companies EdTech has evolved from simple content libraries into integrated AI-native platforms built around personalization, outcomes, and product-led growth. The winners in this next phase aren't bolting AI onto legacy stacks - they're rebuilding their core product loops around it, fuelled by both bootstrapped growth and external funding. AI-EdTech has emerged as one of the sector's fastest-growing segments, with investment projected to grow from US$3.65B in 2023 to US$9.2B in 2025 - deals that are fewer, but bigger. Exit pathways are diversifying in step, from strategic M&A chasing AI capability and regional distribution, to IPOs opening up for platforms with strong regional positioning. To learn more, reach out to us at [email protected] #EdTech #AI #PersonalizedLearning

Favour Capital Market Outlook – The Personal Workflow Operating System (OS): How a Unified System Is Redefining Productivity The productivity stack is broken, and adding another tool won't fix it. Users have become the integration layer between disconnected platforms, paying the cost in lost context and constant switching. The market is saturated with solutions, but almost none of them solve the same problem. What comes next isn't another app. It's a new category: the OS layer, a single system that owns the workflow from input to output. The first platform to accumulate real workflow data will define the category. The more it learns how a user works, the harder it becomes to leave. As AI gets better at replicating how creators think, the skill itself becomes the atomic unit of value. The race to own this layer is already underway, and the winners won't look like today's productivity tools. Dive into the full analysis on where the real white space lies in the report below. #Agents #OS #AI

FC Recruitment – Favour Capital 2026 Investment Banking Elite Program Applications are now open. If you are passionate about supporting founders in emerging Asian markets and making an impact in the tech and consumer industries, we look forward to receiving your application. We welcome candidates graduating in 2026 or 2027 who are based in Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, and China. Submit your application: https://lnkd.in/g8N8M9zj For further enquiries, please reach out to [email protected]. For more information about the company, please visit favour-capital.com #InvestmentBanking #Recruitment #EmergingAsian

Favour Capital Market Outlook – Q1 2026 SEA Fundraising Landscape Recap: What Are People Betting On? The Southeast Asian fundraising market is undergoing a quiet but significant shift. Q1 2026 recorded $2.8B in equity funding across 128 deals, with deals ranging from $5M to $50M accounting for 41% of all rounds in the quarter. This reflects a market where capital is flowing into fewer, more proven companies as investors exercise a greater level of selectivity. Three themes stand out from our analysis. AI continues to lead deal activity with 39 rounds, with business models maturing from early-stage automation toward infrastructure-level offerings. Fintech is evolving beyond its domestic roots, moving from local payment rails to globally-oriented stablecoin infrastructure that is attracting a broader international investor base. Consumer and e-commerce continue to draw steady interest across both D2C brands and marketplaces. At the GP level, active funds are either doubling down on winning portfolios or deepening their focus into deep tech verticals, while increasingly turning to secondary markets as a liquidity management tool. Dive deeper into the full analysis of the Q1 2026 SEA fundraising landscape, including sector-by-sector breakdowns and the emerging GP playbook, through this report. Download the report: https://lnkd.in/gEj3uWqu To learn more, reach out to any of the authors of the report or via [email protected] #SoutheastAsia #Q12026 #Fundraising

Favour Capital Insights - The Rise of Enterprise Agents: The Build vs. Buy Dilemma The shift in AI adoption has moved beyond simple model selection toward autonomous, multiple agents that can independently reason, plan, and execute complex workflows. While the appeal of building proprietary systems is clear due to greater control and security, many enterprises struggle with the complex infrastructure and lengthy development lifecycles required to maintain them. As a result, nearly 50% of enterprises have turned to a hybrid approach, balancing customization with execution speed. This tension is driving the market toward end-to-end agent builder ecosystems: platforms that absorb the complexity of multi-agent production from development to ongoing maintenance, while preserving the core benefits of in-house systems such as tailored workflows and robust security. Paired with no-code environments that unlock significant efficiency gains, enterprises no longer have to choose between keeping up with modern automation technology and staying focused on scaling the business. To learn more, reach out to [email protected] #AI #Enterprise #Agents

Favour Capital Insights – Operationalizing Intelligence: The Surge of AI Infrastructure As enterprises look to adopt AI into their workflows, open-source startups have emerged as a compelling investment angle, using community adoption to build trust and stickiness. This open-source playbook converts loyal developers into massive enterprise clients, driving high growth and successful exits. In short, this model works in three phases: • Distribution: Offering core technology for free as an open source. • Trust: Community adoption will eventually provide validation and become the "developer default." • Revenue: Monetization later captured through managed cloud services and enterprise tiers. This playbook has been proven in the modern era, as seen with players like Databricks and vLLM. These companies leverage open-source foundations, eventually monetizing their platforms through enterprise features such as security layers and specialized product enhancements. To learn more, reach out to us at [email protected] #OpenSource #AI #Infrastructure

Favour Capital Industry Highlights – The Wearable AI Edge: How Newcomers are Rewriting the Wearable AI Playbook As AI moves from Cloud to Edge, and now into wearables embedded in our daily lives, we're witnessing a shift in both technology and investor conviction. We see that this is not just hype from incumbents; emerging startups are steadily earning their place at the table. This potential is reflected in the fundraising landscape from Jan '24 - Feb '26: • 57% of funded companies in Asia successfully raised multiple rounds, reflecting strong repeat investor confidence in the region. • Within wearable AI, productivity-focused companies led the charge, capturing 56% of total funding in Asia. With rising investor trust and proven local players scaling globally, the conditions are ripe for the next wave of breakthroughs, driven not by incumbents alone, but by emerging companies redefining what wearable AI can do. To learn more, reach out to us at [email protected] #AI #wearable #consumer

Favour Capital is pleased to announce that we have served as the exclusive financial advisor for dtcpay's US$10 million Series A. Headquartered in Singapore, dtcpay is a leading digital payments company, building a globally licensed payment network that delivers real-time settlement, competitive pricing, and premium financial services. Vertex Ventures SE Asia & India led the round to support enhancements to dtcpay's product suite and infrastructure, while accelerating its expansion into new jurisdictions, specifically leveraging its Luxembourg EMI license to spearhead entry into the European market. Favour Capital's Founding Partner, Fang Ye, Eric, sends his congratulatory notes: "dtcpay is redefining the intersection of Web3 and consumer fintech. Their focus on regulation, coupled with strong growth, sets them apart in a crowded market. We are honored to have supported the dtcpay team in this successful capital raise, which marks a significant milestone in their journey to becoming a global payment leader." Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gzxdE9pU #stablecoin #fintech #investment