Thai venture builder Rise raises $8m in seed money to expand regionally

Bangkok’s Rise, which aims to create a global ecosystem for corporate innovation through its accelerator and venture building programs, said it has raised US$8 million in seed funding to expand its presence in Southeast Asia.

Lead investors in the round include Metro Company Limited, Japan’s D2Cs, and Chanwanich Company, among others.

Rise co-founder and CEO Kid Supachai Parchariyanon and chief operating officer Rathiya Issarachaikul / Photo credit: Rise

Launched in 2016, Rise works with corporates and governments across the region to help set up and scale innovation initiatives from outside and within the organization.

It plans to use the new funds to scale its tech-enabled platform and take its services beyond Thailand to Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Leveraging the network it has developed so far, the company will also “localize our service portfolios to each market’s needs,” said Rise co-founder and CEO Kid Parchariyanon.

According to the statement, the company has built a global ecosystem that includes more than 400 corporations, over 2,000 startups, and upward of 20,000 corporate investors.

In July last year, Rise announced it was bringing its accelerator services to Singapore through a partnership with the government-linked business development agency Enterprise Singapore.

The program enables participating startups to plug into Thailand’s innovation ecosystem and work with local partners. It also gives more than 1,000 growth-stage startups in Rise’s network a chance to make Singapore the first Southeast Asian country they expand to outside of Thailand.

Rise and Enterprise Singapore have since announced the launch of Rise.AI, a corporate AI accelerator program that looks to bring 30 AI startups from across the globe to Southeast Asia.