Techsauce summit susses out next SE Asia startup wave

Deep tech, blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI) and platform sharing (platformisation) are the next wave of startup industries in Southeast Asia, say analysts at Techsauce Global Summit 2018, a Bangkok conference being held yesterday and today.

“Deep tech startups are growing rapidly, both globally and in Asia, as the e-commerce industry and social startups mature,” said Nio Liyanage, chief of strategy at Accelerate based in Hong Kong, a startup training academy for deep tech.

Deep tech like AI, robotics and drones requires intensive research and development, with related startups needing more time to generate a return than average startups, though the returns are ultimately higher, Mr Liyanage said.

Existing startups need to embrace and integrate AI and machine learning in their products and services, otherwise they will be left behind, he said.

Thailand has market potential because of its large, well-educated population and great digital infrastructure, but there is a shortage of technical talent that will leave the country trailing behind Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam and the Philippines, Mr Liyanage said.

“Deep tech and blockchain are two potential areas that Thais should more greatly focus on, as they are strong foundations for fintech,” he said. “The government is quite progressive here in terms of regulations and the execution of smart visas, but skilled workforce is a critical issue.”

He said the next wave of startups is “frontier technology”, which typically involves deeper tech areas that are emerging from R&D but not at the mass market level of commercial adoption like robotics, drones, autonomous vehicles, machine intelligence and Space 2.0.

Poonyatorn Suthipongchai, managing partner of Creative Ventures, the first Thai venture capital firm founded in Silicon Valley, said the company mainly invests in deep technology.

The firm’s second fund of US$50 million (1.65 billion baht) raised last year targets technology for the ageing population, technology that helps solve workforce shortage problems, technology that reduces climate change from manufacturing and agriculture, and healthcare solutions.

“We chose to invest in Silicon Valley because it is the centre of advanced tech startups in AI, robotics, computer vision and highly-advanced sensors that improve quality of life and add value to business,” Mr Poonyatorn said.

Ariya Banomyong, managing director of Line Thailand, said platformisation is a growing trend whereby a single platform, such as Line, which has a massive user base of 42 million in Thailand, connects to various services.

Line is also seeking out acquisitions and looking to partner with startups whose core tech enables the company to launch new products faster.

Line, in turn, will help those startups scale up their services more quickly.