Southeast Asia’s startup funding market is showing signs of life again, but the recovery is not reaching most founders. Venture-backed companies in the region raised US$7.25 billion across 217 equity deals in the first half of 2026, according to the Southeast Asia Startup Funding Report H1 2026 by Kickstart Ventures and DealStreetAsia. That is the […] The post SEA startup funding jumps to US$7.25B, but most founders are still waiting appeared first on e27.

A fundraiser to help pay disgraced former leader Najib Razak’s 50 million ringgit (US$12.3 million) fine has become a lightning rod for insults and mockery, as Malaysians continue to pile criticism on a decision last week to allow him to spend the rest of his jail sentence under house arrest. King Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar last Friday granted Najib a “conditional pardon”, which will allow the jailed ex-prime minister to complete his term in the comfort of his home – provided he first pays off his...

Indonesia’s navy commissioned its first aircraft carrier on Thursday after acquiring the former Italian vessel to strengthen its maritime defences and disaster response. The Italian flag on the former ITS Giuseppe Garibaldi was replaced with the Indonesian flag on the carrier renamed the KRI Sriwijaya-100 as part of its official transfer at the ceremony held at Tanjung Priok seaport in North Jakarta. “The ship, which previously served in the Italian navy, now bears the name KRI Sriwijaya-100,...

As a Rohingya exile who abandoned his life in Malaysia to return to Myanmar, Ismail’s bleak prospects may portend what awaits others caught in Kuala Lumpur’s migrant crackdown. Weeks ago, the 25-year-old was eking out a living at a Malaysian fish market, one of legions of the Muslim minority group who left Myanmar to escape violence some monitors say amounted to genocide. But a wave of anti-Rohingya sentiment, migrant arrests and a government plan to repatriate Myanmar nationals drove Ismail...

Singapore’s food waste problem is often framed as a consumer habit or a logistics issue. For Life Lab Resources, it is also a feedstock problem, and one that could help ease another pressure point in Southeast Asia: rising demand for more sustainable aquaculture feed. The Singapore-based startup has raised US$1 million in fresh funding to […] The post Life Lab Resources grabs US$1M to turn food waste into aquaculture feed appeared first on e27.

Thailand’s teenage guitar sensation Nene Royal won the US$1 million top prize on America’s Got Talent, capping a viral run that made the 16-year-old a national celebrity and drew support from across her home country. Rattikarn Amloy, better known by her stage name Nene Royal, was crowned the winner during Wednesday’s live results show, beating nine other finalists after emerging as the clear favourite before the finale. During Tuesday’s final, she sang and played guitar on a rendition of “Seven...

The digital asset market has fallen by 2.57 per cent to US$2.86T over the past 24 hours. Bitcoin, the largest token by market value, dropped 2.81 per cent to US$84,261.32 during the same period. The total crypto market cap declined 2.92 per cent, and Bitcoin’s move closely tracked that broader drop. The data shows a […] The post Bitcoin’s corrective pullback or the start of a deeper drop toward US$79,600? appeared first on e27.

Asia’s ETF market has never been more dynamic. Assets are growing, new issuers are entering the market, investors are more engaged and product innovation is accelerating. For many years, the region’s ETF industry was defined by its potential. Today, that potential is becoming reality, with Asia emerging as the world’s fastest-growing ETF market. Yet growth […] The post Can Asia’s ETF infrastructure keep pace with its growth? appeared first on e27.

Cynthia Wihardja’s LinkedIn post begins not with a legal argument, but with a distinction: “There are two ways to lose your freedom. One is done to you. The other, you do to yourself.” The first, she says, is what has happened to her brother, Donald Wihardja, the former head of MDI Ventures, who has begun […] The post TaniHub, prison and grace: Cynthia Wihardja’s post gives a human face to VC risk appeared first on e27.

In the last week of August, Viettel’s network engineers were doing something most of their customers never saw. They were moving traffic in real time, pushing 800 gigabits per second onto one undersea cable, another 300 onto a second, then routing whatever was left over a terrestrial fibre line that runs through Laos into Singapore. […] The post Why scaling across Southeast Asia means pricing in the cable you never see appeared first on e27.