Posts in category: Connext

HealthTech: Transitioning from Local Care to Borderless Medicine

Healthcare systems globally face shared pressures: aging demographics, clinical labor shortages, rising chronic illnesses, and mounting fiscal strain. Thai HealthTech startups are meeting these challenges head-on:

 -PERCEPTRA: FeaturesInspectra AI, a medical imaging platform trained on over 3 million scans (chest X-rays, mammograms, brain CTs, and fundus images) that seamlessly integrates into existing hospital PACS.

 -PRECISION DIETZ (Dietz.asia): Provides an AI-powered telemedicine and remote patient monitoring system designed to bridge hospitals, care teams, and patients across ASEAN markets.

 -TECH CARE SYSTEM: Designs and manufactures smart medical walking canes featuring vitals monitoring, fall detection, emergency SOS alerts, and integrated GPS/GSM connectivity.

 -SATI: Leverages medical AI to summarize clinical records, automate ICD coding, and audit billing accuracy, drastically reducing administrative burden for healthcare providers.

 -RAVIS TECHNOLOGY: Simplifies compliance for medical device, cosmetic, food, and pharmaceutical manufacturers via an integrated quality document management platform.

 -HEAL AND SOUL TECHNOLOGY: Combines real-time EEG brainwave analytics with VR immersive environments to deliver measurable mental health and neurological interventions across hospitals and wellness resorts.

 -ARINCARE: Scales healthcare access through an end-to-end e-pharmacy platform connecting pharmacists, manufacturers, and logistics networks with integrated tele pharmacy services.

30 Startups: Bringing Frontier Tech into Real-World Operations

Across the 30 selected startups, a clear pattern emerges: technology is moving out of the lab and straight into core business operations, transforming manufacturing, retail, construction, facility management, energy, waste, and consumer services.

Thanaleng Dry Port: Connectivity in Action

If VLP represents the macro-ecosystem, Thanaleng Dry Port (TDP) functions as the operational engine executing cross-border transit. Classified as a UNESCAP Class 1 Dry Port, TDP facilitates import, export, and transit trade via integrated rail-road links.

Equipped with container yards, rail sidings, warehouse space, Terminal Operating Systems (TOS), and on-site regulatory services (Customs, Quarantine, Fumigation, and Certification), TDP unifies fragmented operational workflows. This centralized environment allows digital solutions to drive tangible improvements in speed, accuracy, safety, and data governance.

Unlocking Broader Markets Through Strategic Connectivity

Direct integration with the Laos–China and Laos–Thailand railway lines positions TDP as a vital trade gateway linking East Asia with Southeast Asia. Streamlined Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) processing further simplifies cross-border agricultural trade.

For tech ventures, Laos offers a low-friction entry point to build, test, and refine operational business models before expanding into larger, more complex markets like China and Vietnam.

Pragmatic Expansion: Scaling Responsibly

Entering new regions does not require immediate, capital-intensive infrastructure or entity setups. Teams should prioritize identifying specific operational pain points, securing local partners, and running lean pilot programs. Validating ROI on a modest scale lowers initial exposure and builds a clear path toward commercial expansion.

Incentives Support Growth, but Fit Drives Success

Investments in VLP benefit from fiscal incentives under Lao Prime Minister’s Decree 188, including corporate tax holidays ranging from 8 to 16 years, reduced long-term tax rates (6.5%), and selective VAT exemptions on capital equipment.

While favorable policies reduce financial risk, true long-term enterprise value rests on strong Product-Market Fit. Robust infrastructure creates the stage, but solving acute enterprise pain points determines commercial longevity.

A Proving Ground Before Regional Scale

Laos may not be the primary target for every business model. However, for companies operating in Logistics, Supply Chain, AgriTech, FoodTech, Climate Tech, AI, IoT, and Enterprise SaaS, the country offers an active operational arena.

Vientiane Logistics Park is rapidly evolving beyond a traditional transport hub into a regional innovation testbed. For Thai tech ventures, the broader GO ASEAN vision is not simply about exporting products—it is about connecting, testing, proving value, and scaling alongside an expanding trade network. As Laos transitions from land-locked to land-linked, Vientiane stands ready as a vital launchpad for long-term regional growth.

Business Matching Must Go Beyond Making Introductions

When startups enter a new market, they need more than customer leads. They need local relationships that can accelerate market understanding and unlock opportunities that would otherwise take years to build independently.

From the perspectives of Artie Lopez, Co-founder of Brainsparks, and Jecky Pelaez, Partner at Kickstart Ventures, one advantage of the Philippine ecosystem is the interconnected nature of its business networks.

The right relationship can lead to introductions not only to potential clients, but also to corporates, investors, and wider ecosystem communities.

This is why business matching should never be viewed simply as an activity designed to help startups meet as many people as possible within a short period of time.

Its value lies in whether those introductions can evolve into meaningful business relationships.

For the five Thai startups participating in Scaleup to Global 2026: Gateway to ASEAN, business matching extended across potential clients, business partners, distributors, trade partners, strategic partners, and technology partners, as well as opportunities for pilots, proof-of-concept projects, and co-development.

The most useful question, therefore, is not simply:

Who did the startup meet?

It is:

What happened after the meeting?

Did the conversation continue? Was information exchanged? Was a proposal or quotation submitted? Did the companies enter negotiations? Was the product tested? Did the relationship progress toward an MOU, MOA, commercial agreement, or actual revenue?

In international expansion, a connection may open the door—but business outcomes determine whether the opportunity moves forward.

Never Assume a New Market Will Behave Like Your Home Market

One of the strongest lessons shared by entrepreneurs in the Philippines is that startups should never transfer a business model from one country to another without adapting it to the local context.

Payment behavior is a clear example.

The Philippines has seen rapid adoption of mobile wallets, particularly GCash, which has become deeply familiar to both consumers and merchants.

B2B payments are evolving as well, with businesses gradually moving away from checks toward bank transfers and electronic invoicing.

These may appear to be operational details, but for startups they can have significant implications for product design, payment models, customer journeys, and go-to-market strategy.

The experience shared during the program reinforced an essential principle:

Success in a new market is not determined by technology alone.

It depends on whether that technology fits the way the market behaves.

More Customers Do Not Automatically Mean a Sustainable Business

Another important lesson is that measuring success only by the number of leads or customers can create a misleading picture of growth.

A case shared during the program involved a spend-management startup that had successfully generated many SME leads and customer meetings.

At first glance, the pipeline looked promising.

But once customers began using the service, the company discovered that many were highly price-sensitive and produced significantly lower transaction volumes than expected.

The problem was therefore not an inability to acquire customers.

It was a question of customer quality and unit economics.

For startups preparing to scale, the right questions go beyond customer count.

Are customers using the product? What is retention? How much revenue does each customer generate? Is the cost of acquiring and servicing that customer justified by the value created over time?

Sustainable growth requires not only greater volume, but economics that can scale with it.

Five Thai Startups, Five Different Market-Entry Challenges

Although all five Thai startups entered the same market, each arrived with a different product, customer segment, and business model.

The Philippines therefore became something of a live testing ground—an opportunity to identify not only where potential exists, but also what each company must prepare before moving to the next stage.

HORGA: PropTech Needs a Testing Ground Before It Scales

HORGA develops PropTech software for managing rental properties, dormitories, and commercial spaces, helping property owners and managers operate more efficiently.

In the Philippines—particularly in Metro Manila and major urban centers such as Cebu and Davao—property management represents a potentially attractive area for digital solutions.

HORGA’s immediate challenge is therefore not to capture the entire market at once, but to identify property owners, developers, property managers, and strategic partners whose pain points closely match the company’s solution.

Starting with a carefully selected pilot or proof of concept can help validate product-market fit, generate local evidence, and establish credible references before broader expansion.

In other words, the first objective is not scale.

It is finding the right place to prove that scale is possible.

Dietz Asia: In HealthTech, Regulation Comes First

For Dietz Asia, a telemedicine platform connecting hospitals, clinics and home-based chronic care, the market opportunity is only one part of the equation.

The other is the regulatory environment.

HealthTech companies cannot enter a new market using the same playbook as a conventional digital business. Their operations are closely linked to regulations, oversight mechanisms, certification processes and the structure of the healthcare system itself.

Affordability and service-delivery models are also crucial factors when designing a viable business model.

For this reason, startups entering the sector should begin with regulatory mapping—understanding the relevant requirements before committing significant resources to market development.

Regulation is not merely a hurdle at the point of entry. It can shape the product, operating model and commercial strategy from the very beginning.

MUI Robotics: Deep Tech Must Move from Technology Readiness to Market Readiness

MUI Robotics develops AI-Nose, an electronic nose technology designed to detect smell and taste characteristics for quality control in industrial manufacturing.

Its experience showed that even in a market with strong interest in AI and Deep Tech, advanced technology does not automatically translate into commercial adoption.

Regulation, industry standards, user readiness and the process of integrating new technologies into production systems all need to be considered.

In this context, a local partner can play a far more important role than simply introducing potential customers.

The right partner can help a startup understand local standards, procurement processes and the practical needs of industries on the ground.

The central challenge, therefore, is moving from:

“Technology Readiness” to “Market Readiness.”

Indonesia: One Large Market Made Up of Many Different Markets

If Laos is best viewed through the lenses of supply chains and connectivity, Indonesia requires a different perspective: scale, diversity, and economic transformation.

During the session “Gateway to Indonesia: Support and Services for Thai Startups,” Ester Widya, VP Business & Marketing at KUMPUL, Indonesia, introduced the dynamics of the Indonesian market and the support mechanisms available to Thai startups seeking to enter its business ecosystem.

Entering Indonesia was likened to stepping into a vast amusement park: there is something for every kind of player, from thrill seekers willing to take bold risks to businesses looking for a more measured entry point.

At the same time, the market can also resemble a vast forest—one where companies may discover a gold mine of opportunities or encounter obstacles they did not expect. Success often depends on having the right guide and, just as importantly, knowing who to connect with once inside the market.

Indonesia is Southeast Asia’s most populous country, with more than 280 million people. It also has more than 221 million internet users, representing close to 80% of the population.

The combination of population scale and growing digital adoption makes Indonesia one of the region’s most promising markets for technology and digital businesses.

Yet 280 million consumers do not constitute one uniform market.

Indonesia comprises more than 17,000 islands, over 700 ethnic groups, and a large number of local languages. Although Bahasa Indonesia serves as the national language, significant differences remain across regions in consumer preferences, commercial practices, local networks, and economic conditions.

For startups, the key question is therefore not simply:

“What can we sell to 280 million people?”

A more useful set of questions is:

“Where should we begin? Which customers should we focus on? And which problem should we solve first?”

This is where hyper-localization becomes essential.

Rather than attempting to cover the entire country from day one, startups should identify the city, customer segment, or industry where their solution has the strongest chance of gaining traction—and expand from there.

Three Emerging Economies Creating New Opportunities

Indonesia’s attraction goes beyond population growth. The country is undergoing several major economic transitions that are opening new spaces for innovation.

The Digital Economy

The first is the continuing expansion of Indonesia’s digital economy, spanning e-commerce, new retail, direct-to-consumer businesses, digital government, smart cities, and EdTech.

As more Indonesians participate in digital services, new demand is emerging from consumers, businesses, and public-sector organizations alike.

For technology startups, this creates opportunities not only in consumer platforms but also in enterprise solutions, infrastructure, data, payments, public services, and digital transformation.

The Green Economy

The second major opportunity lies in the green economy.

Indonesia holds strategically important natural resources, including nickel and palm oil, while simultaneously pursuing a broader energy transition.

This is generating demand for renewable energy, energy-transition technologies, sustainable agriculture, green supply chains, and environmental management solutions.

For Thai startups, areas such as ClimateTech, EnergyTech, Agritech, FoodTech, and carbon management may offer particularly strong opportunities—especially where technologies can demonstrably reduce costs, improve productivity, or mitigate environmental impacts.

The Wellness Economy

The third growth area is the wellness economy, encompassing HealthTech, telemedicine, digital health, wellness tourism, beauty, healthcare services, and wellbeing products.

Tourism destinations such as Bali have also developed strong wellness ecosystems, creating additional space for products, services, and technologies at the intersection of tourism, healthcare, and lifestyle.

As these three economic shifts converge, new hybrid opportunities are emerging: AI-enabled healthcare management, IoT-based energy optimization, and data-driven green logistics are just a few examples.

For Thai startups, the opportunity is therefore not simply to export “Thai products” to Indonesia. It is to bring technology, expertise, and innovation into the country’s evolving economy and solve problems that matter locally.

Opportunities Remain, Even as Investors Become More Selective

Indonesia’s startup market continues to hold considerable potential, but the investment climate has become more cautious.

Data presented during the session indicated that startup funding had declined by approximately 49%, falling to around US$355.7 million compared with an earlier period.

Yet investment has not disappeared. Capital continues to flow toward business models that are closely tied to real economic activity and consumer demand, including Fintech, New Retail & D2C, and E-Commerce.

The shift offers an important lesson.

A decline in funding does not necessarily mean a decline in market opportunity. Instead, the basis of competition is changing.

Startups are increasingly expected to demonstrate that their technology can generate revenue, reduce costs, improve efficiency, or solve a measurable customer problem—not simply acquire users or grow through capital.

For Thai startups, Indonesia should therefore not be viewed only as a market for fundraising. It can also be a market for building customers, corporate partnerships, and proof-of-concept projects that establish the foundation for long-term expansion.

Choosing the Right “First Market” Within Indonesia

One of the most common mistakes when entering Indonesia is to treat the entire country as a single market.

In reality, economic structures and business environments vary considerably from one region to another.

Indonesia has a decentralized administrative system spanning 38 provinces, which means that regulatory details, requirements, procedures, and incentives can vary by location.

At the national level, business establishment and investment are connected to systems overseen by BKPM and the Online Single Submission (OSS) platform, which consolidates a range of licensing and administrative processes.

For startups, location should be selected according to the business model.

Jakarta and Bali, for example, may be attractive starting points for digital and technology companies seeking networks, customers, and market-testing opportunities.

Manufacturing-oriented businesses, by contrast, may need to consider regions with stronger industrial bases, access to resources, or specific supply-chain advantages, including parts of Sumatra and Borneo.

The important point is that startups do not need to scale across the entire country immediately.

They need to identify the first market where they are most likely to achieve product-market fit, build the right partnerships, and generate evidence that the model works.

Expansion can follow once that foundation is in place.

In Indonesia, Relationships Are Part of the Business Infrastructure

A strong technology solution may be enough to secure an initial meeting. It is rarely enough to close a deal on its own.

One of the defining characteristics of doing business in Indonesia is its relationship-driven and partnership-based culture.

Trust, credibility, and long-term relationships often carry as much weight as the commercial proposition itself.

This means effective business matching should go beyond introductions or business-card exchanges. The real value lies in understanding a partner’s pain points, identifying areas for collaboration, running pilots, and developing proof-of-concept projects.

For foreign startups without an established local team, a reliable local partner can therefore be one of the most important assets.

Local partners can help connect startups with corporate customers, government agencies, investors, and industry networks that may otherwise be difficult to access.

In a market as large and diverse as Indonesia, relationships are not merely helpful—they are part of the infrastructure required to do business.

GO ASEAN Is Not Just About Selling Abroad. It Is About Growing with the Market.

Ultimately, the lesson from Startup Thailand Connext: GO ASEAN is not that every Thai startup should choose one particular ASEAN country over another.

It is about changing the way founders think about international expansion.

Going ASEAN is not a matter of packing a product that succeeded in Thailand and selling the same thing across the border.

It means entering a market prepared to learn.

What problems are customers trying to solve? How does the local ecosystem work? Which relationships matter? Where do decisions get made? And how must the product, business model, or partnership strategy change to fit the market?

In Laos, the opportunity may lie in becoming part of a more connected regional supply chain.

In Indonesia, the opportunity may lie in helping shape new sectors of an economy undergoing rapid transformation.

Yet whether the market is large or small, one principle remains constant:

Great technology alone is not enough. It must be supported by market understanding, the right partners, and the ability to adapt.

Because international growth does not happen simply when a company enters a market.

It happens when that company learns to understand the market, earn trust, solve a real problem, and grow alongside it over the long term.

urformance: Textile Technology Designed for a Hot and Humid Climate

Another standout was Siberian from Mahidol University, whose project, urformance, received first runner-up honours. The team applied textile technology to develop clothing suited to Thailand’s hot, humid climate and the increasingly active lifestyles of modern consumers.

Heat and humidity often lead to sweat accumulation, discomfort and unpleasant odours. urformance addresses these issues through a two-layer fabric structure. One layer draws moisture away from the skin, while the other spreads the moisture and accelerates evaporation, helping the wearer stay drier and more comfortable.

The fabric also incorporates micro-encapsulated fragrance technology, releasing a scent through movement and friction. Additional features include UV protection, antibacterial properties and odour control, allowing the product to serve purposes beyond conventional sportswear.

The concept, “One Outfit All Day,” reflects a product design philosophy rooted in consumer behavior. The aim is to create clothing that can move seamlessly from a morning workout into the rest of the day.

At the same time, urformance demonstrates how research and textile science can differentiate Thai products, respond to local environmental conditions and add new value to the country’s textile industry.

VEKIN (Thailand): When Climate Tech Becomes Business Infrastructure

Climate Tech is emerging as another major growth opportunity in Singapore. What was once viewed as a matter of corporate reputation is rapidly becoming an essential component of risk management, compliance, and business strategy.

Climate disclosure requirements continue to expand, with companies within the Straits Times Index expected to report Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions beginning in Financial Year 2026. At the same time, the Singapore Exchange (SGX) continues aligning sustainability reporting standards with global frameworks.

Against this backdrop, VEKIN has the opportunity to move beyond the role of a conventional ESG platform and position itself as a critical data infrastructure provider.

Its technology enables organizations to systematically collect, analyze, and manage energy and carbon data, transforming fragmented information into actionable intelligence that supports reporting, auditing, compliance, and strategic decision-making.

Perceptra: Using AI to Strengthen Healthcare

Healthcare systems are facing rising patient numbers, growing demand for screening, and limitations in medical personnel. Perceptra applies AI to screening and preventive health-risk assessment, helping improve operational efficiency and extend the capacity of healthcare systems.

The key to entering the market is building confidence—confidence in the solution’s accuracy, safety, compatibility with existing systems, and compliance with healthcare-sector requirements.