The Southeast Asia Founder's Guide to Singapore VCs in 2026: Who Invests, Cheque Sizes, and How to Actually Get In

Singapore is the capital market of Southeast Asia. Not the biggest user market (Indonesia is) or the biggest engineering pool (Vietnam and the Philippines compete for that), but the place where regional and international capital sits when it deploys into SEA. If you are building in Bali, Jakarta, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Manila, or Kuala Lumpur and you want to raise institutional capital from the region, most of your coffee meetings and term sheets will still trace back to Singapore.

This is the practical 2026 playbook. Who is actually deploying, how much at what stage, what they look for, and the real mechanics of getting in, compiled from BSTC members who have closed rounds from Singapore VCs in the last 18 months.

Nothing here is legal or financial advice. Before you act on any fundraising numbers, talk to a lawyer in your incorporation jurisdiction and to founders who have recently closed rounds from the exact funds you are approaching.

TL;DR

• Deploying funds in 2026 include Peak XV, Jungle Ventures, Monk's Hill, Openspace, Insignia, East Ventures (Singapore office), Wavemaker, Golden Gate, Vertex SEA, January Capital, B Capital, Antler, Iterative, AppWorks, and 500 Southeast Asia.
• Pre-seed cheques (Iterative, Antler, 500 SEA, East Ventures seed): $100K to $500K typically, often with programmatic support.
• Seed cheques (Peak XV Surge, Wavemaker, Jungle seed, Openspace Early, January): $500K to $3M, often leading.
• Series A cheques (Jungle core, Peak XV, Openspace core, Vertex SEA, Insignia, Monk's Hill): $3M to $15M, lead-capable.
• Growth cheques (B Capital, GGV, Peak XV Growth): $15M+.
• What gets through the door in 2026: clear wedge, real revenue or real traction, SEA exposure, defensible ownership of a small market before expanding, and a warm intro from a portfolio founder or known operator.
• What kills deals fast: vague TAM, hand-waved SEA GTM, no insights on local regulation or payments, over-engineered AI wrappers with no moat, or raising too much too early.

The active Singapore VCs in 2026

The list below is not exhaustive. It is the set of funds BSTC members mention most often as actively deploying and responsive in 2025 and 2026. Always verify with portfolio founders before pitching, because funds rotate partners, pause deployment, or shift stage focus quickly.

Pre-seed and accelerator-adjacent

Antler (global, heavy SEA activity). Venture studio model. Sources founders, helps with co-founder matching, invests ~$100K to $150K at pre-seed for a meaningful stake. Useful if you are solo, pre-team, and want a kick-start cohort. Stake terms are not cheap, so understand dilution implications.

Iterative (SEA pre-seed accelerator). Jason Edwards, David Shen, Hsu Ken Ooi. Twice-yearly cohorts, $150K standard cheque with graduate demo day. Strong operator network. Good fit for B2B SaaS, AI, and dev-tools founders.

500 Southeast Asia (formerly 500 Global SEA). Seed-focused, cheques $100K to $1M depending on entry, portfolio includes Carousell, ShopBack, Grab. Lighter-touch than Antler, broader thesis.

East Ventures Seed (Singapore and Jakarta offices). Often the first institutional cheque in Indonesian and regional SEA startups. Cheque sizes $250K to $2M at seed. Speed of decision is their differentiator.

Seed-focused

Peak XV Surge (formerly Sequoia Surge). Twice-yearly cohort plus standalone seed cheques. Cheque sizes $500K to $3M. The brand halo is large, so expect heavy founder selection. They want category-leader potential from day one.

Wavemaker Partners. Deep SEA roots, deeptech and enterprise tilt, but broadly sector-agnostic in 2026. Seed to early Series A, cheques $500K to $3M.

Golden Gate Ventures. Historic SEA tier-one, seed-to-A generalist. Cheques $500K to $2M typical seed.

Cocoon Capital, Prototype Capital, Insignia Ventures Seed. Smaller seed specialists writing $250K to $1M cheques.

January Capital. SEA-focused, seed-to-A, operator-heavy team. Cheques typically $1M to $3M.

Series A and core stage

Jungle Ventures. Long-running SEA fund, core Series A leader. Cheques $5M to $15M. Strong portfolio in commerce, fintech, and B2B SaaS. Known for high-conviction ownership positions.

Openspace Ventures. SEA-focused, lead-capable at seed and Series A, known for deep commercial diligence and founder support post-investment. Cheques $3M to $10M at Series A.

Monk's Hill Ventures. Operator-founded, SEA-focused, seed-to-A. Cheques $2M to $8M. Known for fast decisions and heavy post-investment involvement.

Peak XV (core). Series A and B cheques, typically $5M to $25M. High bar, but the quality of partner support and network is difficult to replicate elsewhere in the region.

Insignia Ventures Partners. SEA-focused, seed-to-A, strong in Indonesia and Vietnam. Cheques $2M to $8M.

Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia. Temasek-backed, Series A lead with operational heft. Cheques $5M to $15M.

GGV Capital (SEA office). Regional and global arms. Series A and B, cheques $5M to $25M.

AppWorks. Taiwan HQ, heavy SEA investment activity. Generalist seed-to-A, cheques $500K to $5M. Strong accelerator pipeline.

Growth and late stage

B Capital. Later-stage growth, often leading Series B and C rounds. Cheques $10M+.

Peak XV Growth. Separate growth pool, Series B and C, cheques $15M to $50M.

Singtel Innov8, SGInnovate, Temasek-adjacent vehicles. Corporate and government-linked capital. Strategic checks, often co-invest alongside tier-one VCs at Series A and later.

Cheque sizes and round composition

Cheque sizes move with the market, but the 2025-2026 SEA pattern looks roughly like this:

| Stage | Total round size | Lead cheque | Valuation range | |---|---|---|---| | Pre-seed | $500K to $1.5M | $150K to $500K | $3M to $8M post | | Seed | $1.5M to $4M | $500K to $3M | $8M to $20M post | | Seed extension | $1M to $3M | $250K to $1.5M | $10M to $30M post | | Series A | $6M to $15M | $3M to $10M | $25M to $75M post | | Series B | $15M to $35M | $10M to $25M | $75M to $250M post |

These are typical ranges, not guarantees. Founders with breakout traction or strong reference founders land outliers in either direction.

What Singapore VCs actually look for in 2026

Three things come up repeatedly from partners BSTC members have pitched in the last year:

1. A defensible wedge, not a total-addressable-market spreadsheet. Singapore VCs have seen enough decks citing "$200B TAM" to have calibrated out on it. What works is founders who can articulate a specific wedge, why they win in that wedge, and the credible path from wedge to adjacent markets. A five-customer case study beats a McKinsey chart every time.

2. Real commercial signal, proportionate to stage. At pre-seed, that means strong founder-market fit and a working MVP with paying design partners. At seed, $20K to $100K MRR is the typical bar for the best decks to get in the door. At Series A, most rounds close at $1.5M to $3M ARR with clear expansion mechanics. AI founders are currently allowed to raise earlier against usage metrics, but the bar is rising fast.

3. SEA-native GTM intelligence. This is the single most under-weighted thing international founders miss. Indonesian payment rails, Vietnamese KYC realities, Thai licensing complexity, Philippine compliance, Malaysian tax treatment, Singapore regulatory proximity. Founders who can speak to one of these with operator credibility get meetings that AI-dashboard-pitchers do not.

How to actually get in

Cold outreach works at below a 2 percent conversion rate on average. Warm intros are the dominant path. The fastest warm intro pipeline in 2026 runs through three channels:

Portfolio founders. Every SG VC lists portfolio on their site. Find a founder two degrees from you (same vertical, same region, same stage). DM them with a tight 3-sentence ask and a 1-paragraph company summary. If they connect with what you are building, they will introduce you to their partner. Conversion rate here is 20 to 40 percent when the founder-to-VC fit is real.

Operator networks. Ex-Grab, ex-Sea, ex-Shopee, ex-Gojek, ex-Traveloka operators who angel invest or advise are warm-intro machines. The density is high in Singapore and Jakarta, and growing fast in Bali. BSTC members raising in 2025 report the highest warm-intro yield coming from 3-to-5 angel investors they met through community events in the 12 months before their raise.

Operator-led communities. Communities like BSTC, Iterative's alumni network, On Deck's SEA cohorts, and sector-specific communities (AI, fintech, B2B SaaS) put you in rooms with the exact people who can make the intros that matter. This is why the pre-raise work of joining and contributing to communities matters so much. For what this looks like in practice, see our guide on how to network at tech events without being that person.

Conferences and focused events. Tech in Asia, SuperReturn SEA, Singapore Fintech Festival, Echelon, SEA Summit. The conversation rate is lower than warm intros but specific partners will take meetings at these events. The value is in compressing multiple conversations into a few days.

The pitch mechanics that actually work

Five patterns that BSTC members have seen convert:

Short decks. 10 to 15 slides, no appendix required in the first meeting. Partners decide within the first five slides whether they want to go deeper. Use the remaining slides to answer the questions the first five provoke.

Clear ask on slide one. Stage, round size, minimum cheque, valuation range if you have anchored it. Partners respect founders who know what they are raising for and are confident in the number. Vague asks signal you have not done the work.

Founder-market fit narrative in the first meeting. Why this problem, why you, why now. If you cannot tell this story in 90 seconds with genuine conviction, the rest of the deck does not matter.

Revenue, not just metrics. Usage metrics, signups, and community size are leading indicators. VCs at seed and beyond want to see willingness-to-pay. One paying customer at $2K MRR beats 10,000 waitlist signups when the question is whether your business can exist.

Do not over-raise. Founders who ask for $5M at seed when $1.5M would fund 18 months of runway signal lack of capital discipline. Raise for 18 to 24 months of runway, prove the next milestone, then raise again on better terms.

Common mistakes

• Raising before finding the wedge. Founders who raise at "the idea stage" in 2026 often spend the money finding a wedge, which is what they should have done before raising. Fund your exploration with angel money or revenue, not institutional seed capital.
• Assuming SEA VCs are US VCs with different addresses. They are not. Their thesis, ownership targets, and founder patterns differ materially. Read their public investment criteria and listen to their podcasts before the meeting.
• Pitching at fund launch or fund wind-down. Funds deploy in cycles. Pitching mid-deployment (typically months 12 to 36 of a 10-year fund) is where you get the most attention. Pitching at the start or end is where you get polite rejections.
• Ignoring Southeast Asian incorporation structure. If your cap table is a mess or you are incorporated in a jurisdiction that friction SEA VCs (certain offshore havens, US C-Corp with no reverse flip ready), you will lose weeks in the term sheet negotiation. Talk to a SEA-focused corporate lawyer before starting the raise. For the structural options, see our PT PMA Indonesia founder playbook and Bali founder tax guide.
• Not doing reference diligence on your VC. The best founders in the BSTC community treat VC diligence as a two-way process. Ask for 2 to 3 founder references (portfolio companies that struggled, not only the winners). How a VC behaves in hard times is the single most important data point.

The honest answer on location

You do not need to be based in Singapore to raise from Singapore VCs. BSTC members have closed rounds from Peak XV, Jungle, Openspace, Monk's Hill, Insignia, Wavemaker, and East Ventures while based in Bali. What matters is being in the room when it counts. A typical 2026 raise pattern:

• 12 to 18 months pre-raise: build presence in the SEA operator community. Go to Singapore for 1 to 2 weeks a quarter. Ship real progress.
• Pre-raise month: line up 10 to 15 warm intros, prepare the deck, rehearse with portfolio founders.
• Active raise (6 to 10 weeks): live in Singapore for 2 to 4 weeks. Back-to-back first meetings. Move to partner meetings and data room phase. Close.
• Post-close: return to base (Bali, Jakarta, Bangkok, wherever), work with investors remotely, fly quarterly for board.

This pattern works. It requires willingness to travel and discipline in the pre-raise period, not a Singapore address.

Next steps

If you are preparing to raise from Singapore VCs in the next 12 months, the highest-leverage work is not the deck. It is the 10-to-15 warm-intro pipeline you build in the 12 months before the raise. BSTC has 2,500+ members across Southeast Asia including founders who have raised from every fund listed above, operators who can make warm intros, and angel investors writing SEA cheques in 2026.

Join the community to get access to the weekly intel, warm-intro asks, and pre-raise prep sessions that happen across our WhatsApp groups and in-person events.

If you are weighing which SEA city to base in during your raise, read our comparisons: Bali vs Singapore, Bali vs Jakarta, and Bali vs Ho Chi Minh City. And if you want the investor perspective on what they are actually screening for, read our companion post What Investors Look for in Southeast Asian Startups.