Thu Huong Le · · 6 min readIn AI investing, it’s speed vs. patience
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In focus
- Thu Huong Le on how AI investors are taking different paths
- The latest on prominent Indonesian founders Nadiem Makarim and Gibran Huzaifah
- Why a new book on Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis matters
Hello reader,
I’m an extremely impatient person – even a five-minute wait feels painful to me. Like many millennial professionals, I have a strong desire to get things done and see results immediately. However, this can occasionally backfire, resulting in rushed decisions and annoying people.
I can understand why investors are rushing into AI – they have to. This past week, our journalists spoke with two investors, one in the US and one in Singapore, each of them offering insights into how they are approaching AI investing.
In a conversation with Elyssa Lopez, Wally Wang, founding managing partner of Scale Asia Ventures, said his firm’s AI investing ethos also has to evolve within just a couple of years.
His early bets focused mostly on mid-layer software, targeting experienced founders from Big Tech or repeat backgrounds. Now, the company is backing younger, AI-native founders who may lack sales experience but have strong AI capabilities and move fast.
Meanwhile, Melissa Goh offers a closer look at how veteran VC firm Granite Asia, an early investor in Grab, approaches AI. Senior managing partner Jixun Foo told her that the firm has been investing in AI for the past decade, well before the current boom.
One example is Manycore Tech, a Chinese spatial intelligence software that has received backing from Granite since 2014 and just went IPO in Hong Kong this past Friday.
This underscores a familiar truth: No single strategy fits all, even as both investors aim to identify early AI winners.
Image credit: Ulla
In practice, investment approaches vary by where a company sits in the AI stack. In the application layer – covering agents and consumer AI – speed is critical. In deeper areas like AI for biotech, longer cycles are unavoidable.
Taken together, investors still want AI founders who can answer the basics: Are you solving problems Big Tech can’t with AI and doing so at a lower cost?
Moving on from AI, two moments this past week also stood out to me. Nadiem Makarim, co-founder of Gojek, appeared in court awaiting a verdict. Meanwhile, prosecutors proposed a 10-year prison sentence for Gibran Huzaifah, founder of agritech unicorn eFishery.
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