Cover An EngineAI humanoid robot takes a fighting stance. EngineAI was one of many VC-backed startups exhibiting their latest models at Beyond Expo 2026. (Photo: Beyond Expo)
An EngineAI humanoid robot takes a fighting stance. EngineAI was one of many VC-backed startups exhibiting their latest models at Beyond Expo 2026. (Photo: Beyond Expo)
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From the resurgence of “996” work culture to the potential of humanoid robots and AI infrastructure, here’s what three leading VC investors are looking at this year
At Beyond Expo 2026 in Macau, held under the theme “Empowering Asia, Bridging the World,” the spotlight focused less on headline AI celebrities and more on the builders behind the next wave of Asian startups.
“We didn’t just invite so-called big names in AI,” said Gang Lu, founder of TechNode and co-founder of Beyond Expo, at the conference’s closing ceremony on May 30, capping off the four-day event. “This year, for the first time, we focused on one-person companies and paid more attention to programmers, because they have the potential to become unicorns in the future.”
Alongside these founders and programmers were several leading VC investors, who told Tatler Asia about the opportunities shaping Asia’s current tech boom, from work ethics to humanoid robots and a rapid AI infrastructure buildout.
Magnus Grimeland, founder and CEO, Antler
Above Magnus Grimeland, founder and CEO of Antler, speaking at Beyond Expo 2026. Antler is a global VC firm with more than US$1 billion in assets under management. (Photo: Beyond Expo)
Magnus Grimeland, founder and CEO of Antler, speaking at Beyond Expo 2026. Antler is a global VC firm with more than US$1 billion in assets under management. (Photo: Beyond Expo)
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Asia may have the upper hand in hardware and deeptech, according to Magnus Grimeland, founder and CEO of Antler. But another advantage is an unrelenting work culture, or what Chinese founders have labelled as a “996” schedule—referring to working hours from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM, six days a week.
“There’s a work culture in China and a number of other Asian markets which is just unprecedented, right? Top founders, all across the world, are working Monday through Sunday,” said Grimeland, in an interview on the sidelines of Beyond Expo. “What I try to say to founders is that in the early days, you don’t have a choice, you kind of need to go with the 996 culture, or even 9-12-7. It really is all about optimising the amount of efficient hours you can put into building a business...then, once you hit scale, you actually have a choice.”
China’s top court and labour ministry declared 996 operations illegal in 2021, and while the practice remains commonplace, labour advocates have criticised it for causing burnout and health risks. Even so, as debate on the topic reached a fever pitch last year, some Silicon Valley players have publicly embraced longer hours. Grimeland points to US hyperscalers, which he says spent post-Covid years promoting work-life balance, before competition from ChatGPT and Chinese rivals forced a reset. “They’re changing the culture very much back to the more hardcore founder mentality,” he said, “but they wouldn’t necessarily have to.”
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Founded by Grimeland in 2017, Antler is a sector-agnostic, early-stage investor with more than US$1 billion in assets under management. The Singapore-headquartered firm currently counts a global portfolio of more than 1,200 startups, with offices in more than 20 cities, including New York, San Francisco, London, Bangalore, and Sydney. While a relative newcomer in Silicon Valley, Antler closed a US$160 million US-focused fund in December 2025, and announced in January that it’s aiming for 500 global investments this year, up from 400 in 2025.
One highlight of Antler’s portfolio is telecoms startup Airalo, an e-SIM provider co-founded by Abraham Burak, who was named a Gen.T Leaders of Tomorrow (Singapore) honouree in 2022. The startup reached a US$1 billion valuation last July, following a US$220 million funding round led by private equity giant CVC. Antler first backed Airalo in 2019, and a secondary share sale earned the firm a return multiple of 362, or an increase of 36,100%, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Read more: How to build a global startup, according to Airalo’s Abraham Burak
At a startup’s earliest stages, before it notches its first customers, its co-founders remain the primary determinant of an Antler investment. As for what these founders actually look like, Grimeland says he looks for a “spike” in talent, drive, and a track record of learning, whether they failed or succeeded.
“Everyone says to invest in people, right?” Grimeland added. “If the founders are incredible and we think the business model is stupid, we’ll still back the team. If we think it’s the best business model ever, but the team is wrong, we’ll never back them. We say we will back the people building the future, not try to predict the future.”
Akio Tanaka, co-founder and partner, Headline Asia
Above Akio Tanaka, co-founder and partner at Headline Asia, speaking at Beyond Expo 2026. Headline Asia is a regional arm of the global VC firm Headline, which reportedly has a combined total of more than US$4 billion in assets under management. (Photo: Beyond Expo)
Akio Tanaka, co-founder and partner at Headline Asia, speaking at Beyond Expo 2026. Headline Asia is a regional arm of the global VC firm Headline, which reportedly has a combined total of more than US$4 billion in assets under management. (Photo: Beyond Expo)
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A key theme of Beyond Expo was physical AI, with a focus on integrating AI into robotics and hardware. Akio Tanaka, co-founder and partner at Headline Asia, spoke about how hardware investment is evolving for the Tokyo-headquartered VC firm, which also has an office in Taipei.
“In countries like Japan, where we have a rapidly declining population due to old age, we actually need to figure out how to save labour with robots,” said Tanaka, in an interview on the sidelines of the conference. “So Japan will be one society where you can do a lot of robotics experiments without concern for employment issues.”
A regional arm of the global VC firm Headline, which last reported a combined total of more than US$4 billion in assets under management, Headline Asia chiefly invests at the seed and Series A stages across the Asia-Pacific. In May 2025, Headline Asia announced the final close of its fifth fund at US$145 million, focused on what it described as companies targeting “digital transformation and cross-border operations.” Headline Asia's recent investments included leading the Series A funding round of logistics startup iMotorbike, which was co-founded by Sharmeen Looi, a Gen.T Leaders of Tomorrow (Malaysia) honouree in 2024.
Read more: Tech-driven innovation defines Hong Kong’s new cohort on the Tatler Gen.T Leaders of Tomorrow 2025
For founders, Tanaka also addressed the trade barriers shaping the robotics ecosystem. “We no longer live in this free-trade, ‘everything open’ world. There are barriers both ways between China and the United States, and there are definitely regulatory hurdles on some applications,” Tanaka said. “So for us to do more cross-regional collaboration, we probably need to componentise some of the technologies. The US may not be able to buy complete humanoid robots anymore, but no one said we can’t buy robot arms or specific sensors, right?”
On the specific potential applications of humanoid robots, Tanaka pointed instead to nearer-term industrial applications. “For now, the immediate need is for robots to do boring things, like repeat operations in a factory, sorting things in a warehouse. These aren’t super-complicated tasks, and they’re probably easier-to-reach goals than, say, kung-fu dancing. That’s impressive, but the real needs today might be way more basic.”
Read more: While the world watches humanoid robots dance, this founder thinks we’re missing the point
Esther Wong, founder and CEO, 3C AGI Partners
Above Esther Wong, founder and CEO at 3C AGI Partners, speaking at Beyond Expo 2026. (Photo: Beyond Expo)
Esther Wong, founder and CEO at 3C AGI Partners, speaking at Beyond Expo 2026. (Photo: Beyond Expo)
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Underlying physical AI is the broader AI supply chain, which investment firms like 3C AGI Partners have been targeting. Founded in 2023 by former SenseTime Group managing director Esther Wong, Hong Kong-based 3C AGI Partners says it’s invested in AI chipmaker Groq and processor maker Cerebras Systems. Its latest fund, focused on AI, was set to raise up to US$100 million in February, Bloomberg reported.
“I really wanted to do this fund to resolve, in my mind, a crisis,” said Wong, founder and CEO at 3C AGI Partners. “I’m not investing in robot dogs. There’s no crisis in the world for robot dogs. But there’s a crisis in how sustainably we build AI, so that AI doesn’t end up fighting for resources with humanity.”
More technically speaking, what this means for AI is that the costs of inferencing, or what it takes to run AI models, are skyrocketing: “2026 is the first time in human history that more inferencing capability is used by AI agents, agentic AI, than you and me...that actually brings a significant paradigm shift to how to build data centres,” Wong added.
Read more: AI decoded: what those buzzwords really mean
Above A YouTube video from Cerebras Systems explaining inference.
Wong now focuses heavily on AI infrastructure, which she describes as the “picks and shovels” of the AI gold rush. One portfolio company is Starcloud (formerly known as Lumen Orbit), a startup building data centres in space that it claims can sustainably handle the immense power demands of AI. Headquartered in Redmond, Washington, the company scaled rapidly to reach a US$1.1 billion valuation following a US$170 million Series A funding round led by VC firm Benchmark and private equity giant EQT in March 2026.
“What I really look for is the person who’s tackling some very, very difficult problem that people haven’t thought of yet,” Wong said. “Human beings are used to thinking linearly. And when people think linearly, they also limit themselves in what they believe technology can do.”
“I’m always very comfortable going out of my comfort zone, to fail fast and fail small, so we can hit the next big thing,” she added. “I think a lot of founders need that too. If you have a lot of wisdom and intelligence, failure is the best thing ever, because you learn so much more from failure than you do from success.”
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Cat Wang is an editor at Tatler Asia based in Hong Kong, where she covers business, wealth, innovation, and impact. Previously, she was a Forbes Asia reporter and assistant editor of the Forbes Asia 100 to Watch list, spotlighting startups and small companies on the rise across the Asia-Pacific. She began her career as a trainee reporter at the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong’s newspaper of record. Born in New York City, she graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a B.A. in political science.
