Officially Announcing Our Pre-Seed Round

We’ve just closed our pre-seed funding round with lead investors A2D Ventures and Innospace Thailand, joined by angel investors from Shopee and 500 Startups. To our early backers: thank you for putting your trust in us. We’re excited to embark on this ride of a lifetime together!

That said — let me be honest. As a founder raising capital in August 2025, this has been one of the most challenging times to fundraise.

To paint the picture: a venture capitalist (VC) recently told me,

“We’re deploying just 5% of what we used to two years ago.”

I want to share a few reflections from this experience in the hope that they may help other founders navigating the same stage of their journey.

The market in Southeast Asia has clearly shifted from hype to proof. Investors are no longer writing checks based on vision alone — they want to see traction, early signals of product-market fit, and a clear path to revenue.

Personally, I see this as a healthy shift. It’s forcing founders to build with profitability at the core, resulting in more practical and durable businesses.

One veteran regional VC put it this way: we may see fewer unicorns ($1B+ valuations) coming out of Southeast Asia, but there’s still plenty of room for startups here to scale to the $100M+ range — enough to deliver 10–50x returns for early investors. If you’re focused solely on Southeast Asia, that’s a realistic ceiling. But if your goal is to scale globally — into markets like the US, Europe, India, or China — the ceiling looks very different. That’s a choice you need to make early in your journey. And if you do aim for global scale, it may be worth skipping Southeast Asian investors altogether and going straight to VCs in established markets like the US, where the capital pools are far deeper.

My biggest takeaway as a first-time founder fundraising at this stage: join an accelerator. It’s one of the best moves we made. You’ll meet incredible builders, gain access to VCs, and connect with investors who come specifically looking for startups on Demo Day.

I’m immensely grateful to Ted and Ankit for building Venture Spark, one of the best accelerators in Thailand. Winning a top 5 spot there gave us exposure to regional VCs, many of whom are now in our pipeline for future rounds. Accelerators provide a powerful credibility boost — because investors know these startups have already been vetted, coached, and prepared to pitch.

So if you’re raising funds right now and finding it tough, know this: you’re not alone. The climate has shifted. It’s worth investing more time upfront in securing early traction and revenue commitments from your first clients before walking into a VC pitch.

Wishing you the best of luck — and if I can help in any way, always happy to connect. Here’s my LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alvinkanpura/