Singapore-based early-stage venture capital investor Accelerating Asia has backed eight startups in Asia, including two from Southeast Asia, as part of its 12th cohort.
In a statement, Accelerating Asia said it selected the eight startups from more than 700 applicants, with the companies already generating an average of about $37,900 in monthly revenue.
The cohort includes Podium, a Singapore startup that operates a peer discovery platform aimed at working women, and Fineksi, an Indonesian startup that provides software to automate document-heavy credit analysis.
Podium targets what investors see as an underserved segment in career-focused social and community products, while Fineksi caters to banks and lenders in emerging markets, where underwriting still relies on manual review.
Accelerating Asia said many applications for the cohort referenced AI. Still, the fund focused on founders using the technology to address specific operational bottlenecks in their markets rather than building AI “for its own sake”.
“The founders in Cohort 12 exemplify this. They aren’t building AI for its own sake; they are on the ground, using it as a practical tool to solve tangible, real-world problems in their emerging markets,” said Amra Naiddo, general partner of Accelerating Asia Ventures.
Alongside Podium and Fineksi, the cohort includes Bangladesh-based Chamak, biniyog.io, InsureCow, and Wellspring Global, as well as India’s InLustro Learning and Kustodian.life, spanning trade finance, SME financing, agri-linked assets, consumer products, workforce readiness, and financial infrastructure.
The new investments bring the accelerator’s portfolio valuation to more than $1.1 billion, with portfolio companies having raised over $152 million in follow-on funding, the firm said.
It added that about 45% of its startups have at least one female founder, and three of the eight new companies are female-founded.
The 12th cohort comes as Accelerating Asia Ventures is closing its second fund to make structured, hands-on investment in the next generation of startups in Asia, per the announcement.
