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Hello reader,
I’ve been observing the US elections rather closely, and one of the things I’ve noticed is that there seems to be a heavy emphasis on celebrity endorsements.
Personally, I’m not someone that would be swayed much by such endorsements, but it’s easy to see why many people would. Star power can often have a significant influence in many areas, lending a certain level of credibility and helping shine a bigger spotlight on whatever the high-profile person is endorsing.
As such, it might not be that surprising that SEAI could end up doing well in today’s extremely crowded AI industry. The software services company was established by Magnus Ekbom, co-founder of Lazada, as well as Ashwath Ramesh, who was executive vice president for Southeast Asia at the ecommerce platform.
If that’s not star power, I don’t know what is.
Today we look at:
- What SEAI brings to the AI table
- BuzzAR’s US$1.2 million fundraise
- Other newsy highlights such as YouTube teaming up with Shopee in Thailand and BYD passing Tesla in revenue for Q3
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Entering the AI-rena
Image credit: Timmy Loen
Both Ekbom and Ramesh left Lazada in 2022 and established SEAI in June this year. The Singapore-based company may be young, but with these two at the helm, it’s already raring to go.
- No stranger to AI: According to Ekbom, his experience developing AI at Lazada led him to launch SEAI, and that he’s “been at this for the last 15 years.”
- Fitting the mold: He described SEAI’s offerings as being similar to Salesforce, with the exception of messaging platform Slack. His company also focuses on building machine learning models that are customized for enterprise clients.
- Already thinking beyond: SEAI operates in Southeast Asia, but Ekbom is already thinking about expansion to South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, and possibly Europe.
Read more: Lazada co-founder enters AI arena with Salesforce-like product
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