Singapore-based Tisane Labs, which develops AI for content moderation, first became profitable three financial years ago and came close to it in the next two. It saw revenues grow by 15% in 2022.

Its CEO, Vadim Berman, recounts “perplexing” interactions with venture capitalists which led the company to bootstrap. One investor asked whether a superior AI product can ever be developed outside the walls of Meta or Google.

“If more resources meant automatic winning, then the first person with a rock would become an undisputed absolute ruler of the world,” said Berman, a software engineer-turned-entrepreneur. “Either these people slept through the last decades or they weren’t paying attention.”