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Collin Furtado · · 3 min readAfter Temasek acquisition, BasisAI loses tech staff
At least ten of the 15 original data science and engineering employees at BasisAI, a Singapore-based startup that was acquired by Temasek subsidiary Aicadium, have left the firm.
A LinkedIn search shows that these employees exited the firm starting in October 2021 – just over a month after the acquisition was announced.
BasisAI co-founders (from left): Silvanus Lee, Fengyuan Liu, and Linus Lee / Photo credit: BasisAI
Two of the former staff have joined SPH Media. Tech in Asia understands that BasisAI co-founder Liu Feng-Yuan served as an adviser at SPH Media while also working as vice president of business development at Aicadium.
Sng Ren Yeong, managing director of AI strategy and solutions at Temasek and a former board member at BasisAI, previously told Tech in Asia that the Temasek subsidiary acquired BasisAI as there was “a good convergence of views at the team” and decided to acquire the team and the business, instead of being a minority investor.
Following the acquisition, Aicadium owned a 97.76% stake in BasisAI worth US$14.8 million, as per VentureCap Insights data. BasisAI made US$390,000 in revenue and a loss of US$2.34 million in 2021, its filings showed.
Aicadium in a statement to Tech in Asia says the firm has seen “some turnover.” It says that this is due to the high volatility in the tech job market in 2021 and 2022 and claims that many companies are experiencing “higher-than-normal employee turnover rates.”
The company further adds that it is continuing to hire more people. The company’s jobs page shows that it currently has five openings: three engineering jobs and two data scientists roles.
See also: Mapping Temasek’s role in the startup space
Aicadium was launched with the aim of partnering with Temasek portfolio companies and other enterprises seeking to develop and scale end-to-end AI solutions to improve business outcomes.
BasisAI’s founders included Feng-Yuan, former director of data science and the AI division at Government Technology Agency Singapore; Linus Lee, ex-head of data sciences for Asia Pacific at Twitter; and his twin brother Silvanus Lee, previously director of data science at Uber.
Temasek had initially bought a minority stake in BasisAI in 2019, as it participated in its US$6 million seed round along with Sequoia India.
Photo credit: Affinidi
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Singapore-based AI startup BasisAI, which was acquired by Temasek unit Aicadium, has seen most of its tech employees walk out the door.
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