Headline - Asia

🔷 NVIDIA named GMI Cloud on its earnings call this week. Then made it an Exemplar Cloud partner. During NVIDIA's latest earnings call, our portfolio company GMI Cloud was singled out by name as one of the new neoclouds emerging around the world, named alongside a short list of providers building the backbone of the AI era. GMI Cloud has also been named an NVIDIA Exemplar Cloud partner, a title reserved for providers who meet NVIDIA's metrics-based threshold for performance, security, and reliability on real-world workloads. It puts GMI Cloud in rare company, listed next to AWS, Microsoft Azure, CoreWeave, and Nebius. Two signals, back to back, both pointing to the same thing: GMI Cloud is becoming one of the names that defines AI infrastructure. Congratulations to the GMI Cloud team! ➡️ https://lnkd.in/ehKSW8CB For more stories like this from across Asia, subscribe to Beyond Borders ➡️ https://lnkd.in/geibVRvg --- Alex Yeh, Tim Chen, Jennifer Lin, CHEN-HSI (Claire) LIAU, Kate L., Guillaume Defer 🌕, SungJae Lim, Yuka Kawata, Jeremy Kai P., 

🔷 The Forbes Asia 100 to Watch 2026 list is out, and our portfolio companies respond.io, 株式会社IVRy, and RLWRLD have all been named. Now in its sixth year, it spotlights the startups driving the next wave of innovation across Asia-Pacific, spanning 16 countries and 10 sectors, with AI and robotics leading the way. Seeing three of our companies recognized on the same list is a proud moment, and a signal of the talent building across Asia right now: 🔵 Respond, the AI-powered platform helping businesses manage customer conversations at scale. 🔹 Founder Journey with Gerardo Salandra: https://lnkd.in/gQ7QApHz 🔵 IVRy, bringing AI voice and phone automation to everyday business operations 🔹 Founder Journey with Ryoga Okunishi: https://lnkd.in/eXNXhGhG 🔵 RLWRLD, building the foundation models that bring AI into the physical world of robotics 🔹 Read more on why we invested: https://lnkd.in/e2Pa98Ry Congratulations to the Respond, IVRy, and RLWRLD teams! For more stories like this from across Asia, subscribe to Beyond Borders: https://lnkd.in/geibVRvg --- Jennifer Lin, CHEN-HSI (Claire) LIAU, Kate L., Guillaume Defer 🌕, SungJae Lim, Yuka Kawata, Jeremy Kai P.,

The hybrid rocket propulsion market is set to grow from $848M to $2.6B by 2032. TechCrunch just featured how Letara, backed by the ¥2.6B ($16M) round we co-led, is positioning itself to capture that growth. The company is moving beyond small satellite thrusters into large rocket systems for space, defense, and security. As co-CEO Shota Hirai told TechCrunch: "We plan to explore a much wider set of use cases across both the space domain and the defense and security domain, and to develop and propose hybrid rocket systems suited to each of them." Read the full TechCrunch feature → https://lnkd.in/dkirPxCw We shared why we backed Letara here ⬇️ --- Landon Kamps, Toku Sakai, Jennifer Lin, CHEN-HSI (Claire) LIAU, Kate L., Guillaume Defer 🌕, SungJae Lim, Yuka Kawata, Jeremy Kai P.,

🔷 A look back at IVS Beta: Accessing US Capital ft. NYSE. 🔷 Partnering with the New York Stock Exchange, we brought together founders, CFOs, and leaders for a session built around one question: what does it actually take for an Asian company to reach US capital markets? The program opened with a fireside chat between Lynn Martin, President of NYSE Group, and our Founding Partner Akio T.. Lynn and Akio spoke about the current IPO environment, how global investors evaluate companies from Taiwan and Japan, and what founders should understand about market timing and investor expectations as they prepare for global growth. From there, the conversation moved from strategy to execution with a panel on Preparing for US Listings. Marco Chung, Head of Business Development for APAC and the Middle East at NYSE, joined Tim Chen, CFO of GMI Cloud, and Victor Tseng, CFO of KKday, for a discussion moderated by Jennifer Lin, Principal at Headline Asia. Between them, decades of experience across NYSE, 21Vianet Group, Asia Maritime Pacific, Pinduoduo, Trip.com Group, and Deutsche Bank shaped a candid conversation on building the finance function while still growing the business, the challenges that surface heading into the pre-IPO stage, and where the NYSE and broader ecosystem can genuinely help. The program closed with a networking session that carried the conversation well past the final panel, connecting founders, investors, and advisors working across Taiwan, Japan, and the US. As US capital markets stay firmly in view for ambitious companies across Asia, sessions like this are where the groundwork gets laid. Thank you to NYSE, our speakers, and everyone who joined us in Taipei. Here's a look back ⬇️ --- CHEN-HSI (Claire) LIAU, Kate L., Guillaume Defer 🌕, SungJae Lim, Yuka Kawata, Jeremy Kai P., 

Beyond Borders with Headline Asia Welcome to the 4️⃣7️⃣ edition. ⬛️ New Investment: Letara. We've co-led a ¥2.6 billion pre-Series A in the Hokkaido University spin-out running rocket engines on solid plastic. High thrust at a fraction of the cost and risk, with Asia's first plastic-fueled in-space propulsion system heading to in-orbit demo in H2 2026. 🔷 IVS Beta Taipei: Accessing US Capital ft. NYSE Lynn Martin (President, NYSE Group) joined Akio Tanaka for a fireside on the IPO environment, followed by a panel with NYSE, GMI Cloud, and KKday on what US listing readiness actually takes. Thank you to everyone who joined us in Taipei. 🔷 Founder Journey: Stract Hikaru Ito started programming at eight. His iPhone browser extension PLUG now runs 2M downloads, 1M monthly active users, and ¥15B in annual transaction volume. 🔷 Portfolio Updates ◻️ JPYC raised ¥6B led by AZ-COM Maruwa, whose 2,300-partner network will settle payments in JPYC. Japan's first large-scale corporate stablecoin use. ◻️ GMI Cloud is committing $500M to frontier AI infrastructure, anchored by a compute collaboration with NVIDIA. ◻️ Zettabyte launched Model-as-a-Service on zCLOUD, with open-weight models callable through a single API on NVIDIA hardware. ◻️ Vital Signals opened preorders on Signal Ring, a $399 blood pressure tracker with no cuff at any point, not even for calibration. ➡️ Subscribe to Beyond Borders to stay up to date --- Jennifer Lin, CHEN-HSI (Claire) LIAU, Kate L., Guillaume Defer 🌕, SungJae Lim, Yuka Kawata, Jeremy Kai P.,

🔷 Solid plastic as rocket fuel. That's the idea behind Letara, and it's why we just co-led their ¥2.6 billion pre-Series A. The Hokkaido University spin-out builds hybrid propulsion systems that deliver high thrust at a fraction of the cost and risk of conventional engines. Its international commercial backlog has grown more than 10x since its seed round in December 2024, and Asia's first plastic-fueled in-space propulsion system is set for in-orbit demonstration in H2 2026. As our Founding Partner Akio T. put it: "Its proprietary hybrid propulsion technology delivers a clear advantage in safety and cost, and we believe it will set a new industry standard." This funding will complete the in-orbit demo and grow the team across propulsion, systems, and flight engineering. 🔹Learn more → letaranext.com 🔸To read more Founder Journeys, subscribe to Beyond Borders: https://lnkd.in/geibVRvg --- Landon Kamps, Shota Hirai, Toku Sakai, Jennifer Lin, CHEN-HSI (Claire) LIAU, Kate L., Guillaume Defer 🌕, SungJae Lim, Yuka Kawata, Jeremy Kai P., 

🔷 IVS Beta: Accessing US Capital ft. NYSE, recapped 🔷 Last week in Taipei, we brought together leaders from NYSE, GMI Cloud, and KKday for an evening on what it takes for Asian companies to reach US capital markets. The session opened with a fireside chat between Lynn Martin, President of NYSE Group, and our Founding Partner Akio T., on the current IPO environment and what Asian companies should understand as they prepare for global growth. That was followed by a panel on Preparing for US Listings, with Marco Chung (NYSE), Tim Chen (GMI Cloud), and Victor Tseng (KKday), moderated by Jennifer Lin, Principal at Headline Asia. The conversation went deep on building the finance function while scaling, navigating the pre-IPO stage, and what support actually helps from the NYSE or the broader ecosystem. The event closed with a networking session connecting founders, investors, and advisors working across Taiwan, Japan, and the US. Thank you to everyone who joined us in Taipei. --- Carol H. Min Chul Kim, CHEN-HSI (Claire) LIAU, Kate L., Guillaume Defer 🌕, SungJae Lim, Yuka Kawata, Jeremy Kai P.,

2 million downloads. 1 million monthly active users. 15 billion yen in annual transaction volume. All from a product category that didn't really exist before. That's PLUG, the iPhone browser extension built by Hikaru Ito, founder of STRACT, Inc., one of the companies we're proud to back at Headline Asia. Here's why we believed early: Hikaru isn't a pivot founder. He started programming at eight, was building and monetizing his own mobile apps by fourteen. Shipping products is the only thing he's ever done, and PLUG is the sharpest expression of that instinct yet. As he puts it: "The UI is designed so users can grasp its value in about five seconds." The traction is real, but the vision is bigger. Hikaru is targeting 2 trillion yen in GMV over the next ten years, aiming to build a company that lasts 100, maybe 200 years. He wants to build the next Mercari. We're betting he will. Read the full founder journey here ➡️ https://lnkd.in/ep95i94x --- Jennifer Lin, CHEN-HSI (Claire) LIAU, Kate L., Guillaume Defer 🌕, SungJae Lim, Yuka Kawata, Jeremy Kai P., 

🔷 Our portfolio company GMI Cloud is committing $500 million to expand AI infrastructure for frontier AI customers. The AI-native cloud provider is backing its next phase of growth with a strategic compute collaboration with NVIDIA and nine-figure contracts with a leading U.S. frontier AI enterprise. The approach is deliberately selective: a few long-term compute partnerships rather than many. Through the NVIDIA collaboration, GMI Cloud will sell NVIDIA-powered cloud services, widening access to capital-intensive AI infrastructure while scaling capital-efficiently. It is among the earliest cloud providers to adopt this new partnership model. Congrats to the GMI Cloud team! ➡️ https://lnkd.in/e3CZM89v 🔹 For more stories like this from across Asia, subscribe to Beyond Borders: https://lnkd.in/geibVRvg 🔹

🔷 Next week in Taipei: finance leaders on what it takes to prepare for a US listing. Marco Chung (Head of Business Development, NYSE), Tim Chen (CFO, GMI Cloud), and Victor Tseng (CFO, KKday) join Jennifer Lin (Principal, Headline - Asia Asia) for a panel on Preparing for US Listings. They'll get practical: building the finance function while still growing the business, navigating the pre-IPO stage, and what support actually helps from the NYSE or the broader ecosystem. 🔹 Marco leads APAC and Middle East Business Development at NYSE. 🔹 Tim has led finance at GMI Cloud, 21Vianet Group, and Asia Maritime Pacific. 🔹 Victor has over 20 years in corporate finance and capital markets, with senior roles at Pinduoduo, Trip.com Group, and Baidu. Part of IVS Beta: Accessing US Capital ft. NYSE, alongside a fireside chat with NYSE Group President Lynn Martin and our Founding Partner Akio T.. 🔸Wednesday, August 12 (4:30 PM - 7:30 PM GMT+8) 🔸 Taipei, Taiwan ➡️ https://luma.com/6yud4jc5 --- Carol H. Min Chul Kim, CHEN-HSI (Claire) LIAU, Kate L., Guillaume Defer 🌕, SungJae Lim, Yuka Kawata, Jeremy Kai P.,