Bukalapak has kept its profit streak alive, though only just. The Indonesian tech firm reported positive adjusted EBITDA of US$55,088 for the third quarter of 2026, a swing from a loss of about US$991,000 a year earlier. Over nine months, adjusted EBITDA reached roughly US$606,000, against a US$2.9 million loss in the same period of 2025. Quarterly revenue held flat at about US$88 million, while nine-month revenue climbed 19 per cent to around US$308 million.
Gaming now does the heavy lifting. Its marketplaces, Itemku and Lapakgaming, generated about US$77 million in quarterly revenue, and nine-month gaming revenue rose 27 per cent on the back of international expansion. That push has a price: selling and marketing spend jumped 45 per cent year on year to about US$3.9 million in the quarter. Mitra Bukalapak, the MSME unit, saw nine-month revenue fall 21 per cent as it moved to a third-party model, though its margins improved. BMoney, the investment arm, grew quarterly revenue 34 per cent.
With about US$925 million in cash and liquid investments, Bukalapak has room to manoeuvre. The harder question is whether a company once pitched as Indonesia’s e-commerce champion can build a durable business on gaming top-ups rather than the marketplace that made its name.
REGIONAL
Son reportedly picks Malaysia for US$50B AI and data centre push: Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said SoftBank’s founder chose Sarawak and Peninsular Malaysia for AI and data centre projects. SoftBank has not confirmed the plan, which would test a grid already strained by Johor’s data centre boom.
Ailytics raises US$7.4M to turn idle CCTV into safety AI: Tin Men Capital led the Series A, joined by SG Growth Capital and Japan’s Safie. The Singapore startup grew to 400-plus deployments in 15 countries, though its 73% injury-reduction figure remains customer-reported.
Singapore commits US$112M to cut industrial emissions: EDB and AEDO will fund carbon capture, utilisation and storage research, with up to US$78M for company-led projects under the new DRIVE programme. Industry accounts for nearly two-thirds of Singapore’s emissions.
SGX hunts for new CEO as Loh Boon Chye plans 2027 exit: Loh’s contract runs to mid-July 2027 and no transition date is set; chairman Koh Boon Hwee will help pick a successor. SGX posted record revenue of US$1.17B and US$595M adjusted net profit in FY2026.
Singapore launches US$59M fund to decarbonise power generation: The EMA-AEDO initiative covers hydrogen, solar and biomass, with targets such as hydrogen extraction costs below US$1 per kg. Startups can co-design projects with public researchers, and the state funds up to 75% of qualifying costs.
Korea’s LS Eco Energy puts US$49M into Vietnam ultracapacitor line: The LS Group unit will build medium-sized ultracapacitor cells at LS Cable & System Vietnam by June 2027, funded partly by a US$26M rights offering. The filing names no customers.
Singapore breaks ground on US$49M low-carbon testbed: Amogy, IHI and local startup Metha8 are the Jurong Island facility’s first users. Amogy will pilot ammonia-to-hydrogen cracking at one tonne a day, while IHI tests catalysts that turn CO2 into aviation fuel.
Danantara CIO defends Indonesian corporates amid MSCI scrutiny: Pandu Sjahrir said 134 of 146 large companies listed in Indonesia turned a profit, with first-half earnings up 15%. He urged investors to separate market-governance failings from corporate fundamentals.
Igloo targets five-fold growth for its insurtech software arm: The Singapore firm will use acquisitions to take Igloo Tech Solutions into the Middle East. Its AI claims tool handled 50,000 cases in Q1 with 94% accuracy, and group EBITDA breakeven is targeted for end-2026.
Carro bets Chinese EV influx will feed its used-car business: The Singapore marketplace now sells Dongfeng, Zeekr and Wuling cars. It also rejected 2008 comparisons over its US$352M car-loan securitisation, saying it holds the junior tranche and takes the first loss.
AnyMind opens in Los Angeles to bridge Asian brands and the US: The Singapore-founded, Tokyo-listed firm has helped 15 Asian brands grow in the US over seven months. It will lead with AnyLive, its live-commerce platform, and agentic AI tools.
Data centres could swallow most new power in Johor and Batam: BMI says Johor’s data centres would absorb more than 90% of Peninsular Malaysia’s new generation by 2031. In Batam, DayOne’s campus alone has contracted 450MW, half the island’s installed capacity.
Singapore and Malaysia renew energy pact on cross-border power: EMA and Malaysia’s Energy Commission renewed their 2020 cooperation pact at Singapore International Energy Week, covering electricity trading, renewable energy certificates, solar, storage and interconnection capacity.
INTERVIEWS AND FEATURES
Wealthy founders hedge with gold, not supercars, HSBC finds: Some 61% of entrepreneurs surveyed plan to add gold over 12 months, and half will raise private equity allocations. The barbell strategy keeps personal wealth defensive and confines risk to their own companies.
Thirty Southeast Asian climate startups building beyond the pledges: Seventeen of the 30 are based in Singapore while Vietnam has none, and about half have yet to disclose a round above US$1M. VFlowTech’s US$20.5M raise leads the list.
INTERNATIONAL
Anthropic’s early backers sit on billions ahead of IPO: With Anthropic privately valued at US$965B, Spark Capital’s US$75M stake has grown more than ninetyfold to US$7B, and Iconiq’s US$6B cheque is worth US$17B. The listing could value the lab at up to US$2T.
Instacart explores a sale after talks with DoorDash and Uber: The US$13B grocery delivery firm has hired an investment bank to weigh its options, The Information reported. Uber reportedly walked away, and Bloomberg says talks are early. Shares rose 9.2% on the news.
Zero Industries raises US$3M to beam laser power to satellites: Maezawa Fund led the pre-seed round for the Japan-linked, San Francisco-based startup, which targets a 2030 orbital demonstration. Efficiency is the hurdle: an NTT-Mitsubishi test delivered 152W from a 1kW laser.
Unacademy founders raising US$73.5M fund for deep-tech startups: Roman Saini will run Longshot Capital full-time. The fund has about US$31.5M in commitments, targets a January 2027 first close, and will back seed-stage AI, defence and robotics bets. upGrad acquired Unacademy at a US$206M valuation weeks ago.
Tata Communications to spend US$450M on fibre for India’s AI corridors: The three-phase rollout adds about 10,000 km of fibre, starting with the Mumbai-Pune-Hyderabad-Chennai corridor before reaching Vizag, Bhubaneswar, Jamnagar and GIFT City. It links data centre clusters with cloud firms, global capability centres and banks.
CYBERSECURITY
Decades-old PHP flaws force site owners to patch or go dark: Human researchers in OpenAI and Wiz’s Hack the Planet initiative found the bugs, but attackers raced to exploit them around disclosure. PHP underpins WordPress and Drupal, leaving under-resourced sites most exposed.
Japan’s privacy law trips up founders using GDPR playbooks: APPI leans harder on consent for cross-border transfers but offers a cloud exception GDPR lacks. Japanese buyers expect vendors to arrive with APPI-level contract terms, and those that do shorten their sales cycles.
SEMICONDUCTOR
GlobalFoundries tests an AI-run control room at its Singapore fabs: Built with Siemens, the centre merges five fab control rooms into one and deploys sensor-laden robots. GF gives no downtime, energy or cost targets, and centralisation hands attackers a single high-value target.
Vietnam’s first chip fab likely to miss 2027 target, no ASML deal yet: Military-run Viettel broke ground in January, yet satellite images show no buildings. Sources say months of talks over a DUV lithography machine remain unresolved, and Dutch export-control exposure is unclear. Viettel insists the US$1.3B project is on schedule.
AI
OpenAI cuts frontier model training off from the live internet: The lab will train on cached and simulated web copies after a model exploited a misconfiguration in September to reach the internet. Anthropic began imposing similar limits two weeks earlier.
Apollo economist finds no AI payoff outside Big Tech: Torsten Slok’s look at the S&P 500 minus seven tech giants shows flat profit margins and revenue per worker, with no evidence of productivity gains. He argues business value hinges on judgement, which AI lacks.
inDrive to test Pony.ai robotaxis in Kazakhstan from 2027: Astana trials will start with safety operators, using Pony.ai’s Gen-7 vehicles and Nvidia’s Hyperion platform. Nvidia says the platform could lower robotaxi development costs, vital in emerging markets where rides are already cheap.
Seven in 10 APAC travellers open to AI handling work on holiday: Booking.com’s Travel Predictions 2027 survey of 28,000-plus travellers across 32 markets found 47% would let AI manage emails and admin on holiday. Booking.com and rival Expedia are both adding AI planning tools.
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
How AI agents found US$570K in lost sales at a Laos retailer: QUEST EDTECH’s CEO rebuilt LDC’s Excel reporting with AI agents for about US$100 a month. The hardest fixes were human, such as agreeing what counts as out-of-stock, since four definitions gave rates from 0.6% to 77.3%.
Japan needs execution, and Southeast Asian startups can supply it: A former FPT Software analyst argues Vietnam–Japan ties are shifting from outsourcing to co-creation, citing FPT’s AI tie-up with Sumitomo and SBI. Pilots must still turn into paying contracts.
Indonesia’s farms are ageing as young people head for cities: Farmer numbers fell 7.5% in a decade to 29.3 million, and only 2.6 million younger farmers use digital tools. The author says the Petani Millennial programme lacks transparency and urges certainty on land and credit.
Two part-timers and an AI orchestrator behind a Dubai summit: SR21’s Alex Lin explains how AI derived the “Breaking Point” theme, briefed 48 senior leaders and fact-checked speakers in real time. Logistics, he argues, was its least significant contribution.
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