Signals Ventures

🟠Stories shaping Asia’s tech and business 🎙 Interviews · 💡 Insights · 📰 Analysis |

[Kate Park @kateparknews]

🇯🇵 🚀From a Hokkaido University lab to $16M: Letara is taking its hybrid rocket technology beyond small satellite thrusters and into space, defense and security. Japan is betting big on its domestic space industry.

Read the full story on TechCrunch⬇️
https://t.co/uNDZUoyD3R

[Signals Ventures @SignalsVentures]

https://t.co/Sq63crflYb

[Signals Ventures @SignalsVentures]

Signals APAC # 26 ⬇️

A few stories I’m watching:
🇨🇳🇹🇼China’s export restrictions put pressure on Taiwan’s tech supply chains
🇰🇷Samsung and SK Hynix increase shareholder returns as AI demand reshapes the chip market
🇨🇳China opens satellite IoT to more private players
🤖 Unitree’s huge IPO puts the spotlight on China’s humanoid robot ambitions
🇰🇷Nvidia explores a potential deal with Korean AI chip startup Rebellions

Want to read the full issue? ⬇️

[Signals Ventures @SignalsVentures]

https://t.co/36TPSfnajP

[Signals Ventures @SignalsVentures]

ICYMI Signals newsletter # 25

This week in APAC:
🇦🇺 Australia tested facial recognition on 130,000 faces
🇨🇳 DeepSeek is coming for AI coding tools
🇰🇷 SK hynix is scaling up with a $38B chip expansion
🇯🇵 Japan is pulling in ~$37B in semiconductor investment

And beyond that:
Apple + Alibaba are building a China-specific AI model. Meta is cracking down on under-16 accounts in Australia.

[Signals Ventures @SignalsVentures]

https://t.co/hdio1SxYlI

[Signals Ventures @SignalsVentures]

ICYMI 🎙️On the Record # 9 — Simile CEO and co-founder Joon Park

[Cursor @cursor_ai]

Cursor is now part of @SpaceX.

Today, we have officially closed our acquisition. We will join the @SpaceXAI team to help make Grok the world's most useful AI and improve Grok Build, Grok Bot, Grok API, Cursor, and more.

SpaceX has built some of the most inspiring and impressive technology in the world, and we’re grateful for the opportunity to become part of such a special company. Onwards.

[Kate Park @kateparknews]

At @Ai4Conferences , Geoffrey Hinton, Fei-Fei Li, and Andrew Ng explored a key question shaping AI’s future: how to balance innovation with oversight. Their different perspectives highlight what matters most right now.

My latest for TechCrunch⬇️

https://t.co/W6mRA083PS

[Signals Ventures @SignalsVentures]

https://t.co/I5gGS49EXW

[Signals Ventures @SignalsVentures]

Signals 🎙️ On the Record #9

Simile raised $200M five months after emerging from stealth — and the company wasn’t even planning to raise.

“We were preempted,” CEO Joon Park told me. “They came to us and said, ‘We’d love to invest now.’”

The Stanford spinout is now valued at $2B and is building AI models that simulate human behavior. I talked to Joon about how the research became a company, who’s actually using it, and why investors moved before Simile asked.

Read the interview on Signals⬇️
🔗Link in comments

[Signals Ventures @SignalsVentures]

https://t.co/fhvoQyw58w

[Signals Ventures @SignalsVentures]

Signals APAC # 24 is out.

The US put a 15% tariff on a material China controls 90% of. Chinese AI firms are reportedly still accessing Nvidia chips through overseas data centers. Samsung and SK Hynix said to be testing Chinese equipment as a hedge.

Unitree Robotics goes public. $35B in China VC returns. New Chips & Semiconductors section.

Link in comments

[Signals Ventures @SignalsVentures]

https://t.co/veB6mNeS6L

[Signals Ventures @SignalsVentures]

Signals: APAC Newsletter — Issue #23

Here’s what moved across APAC 📰
➡️ Trump administration reportedly moves to ban Chinese AI models amid cybersecurity concerns
➡️ The U.S. and China reach rare agreement on AI governance
➡️TSMC is raising chip prices. Clients include Nvidia, Apple, and Google.
➡️China resumes robotaxi permitting after three-month freeze
➡️ Samsung enters the smart glasses market with a focus on privacy

💰 On the capital side:
➡️ Ant International staged a quiet comeback — $1.2B raised, Hong Kong IPO in the works.
➡️ Moonshot AI is gunning for a $50B IPO.
➡️ Blackstone just bet on a Korean robotics company most people have never heard of.
➡️Samsung Biologics acquires $1.8B to get into the weight-loss drug supply chain.

[Kate Park @kateparknews]

@nvidia Jensen Huang spent two days in Tokyo last week, working with Japan's leading names across the stack, a $6.2B national AI factory, top robotics makers like Fanuc and Toyota and the chip-materials suppliers behind the next generation of hardware.

Thirty years after @SEGA 's early investment helped a young Nvidia survive, Huang came back to a Japan aiming to lead the next era of AI, the physical one.

Japan's manufacturing depth may be exactly what physical AI needs most. Full breakdown in the comments 👇 Where do you see the biggest opportunity — factories, robotics, or mobility?

https://t.co/DINHjIQw5T

[Carbon Finance @carbonfinancex]

Most Valuable European Companies:

1/ $ASML: $671B
2/ $HSBC: $345B
3/ $ARM: $285B
4/ $LVMUY: $279B
5/ $AZN: $262B
6/ $SHEL: $242B
7/ $LIN: $237B
8/ $LRLCY: $232B
9/ $SIEGY: $231B
10/ $NVO: $223B

[Kate Park @kateparknews]

I talked to Current AI CEO Ayah Bdeir about the nonprofit trying to build the "World Wide Web of AI" for the communities and languages Big Tech has largely left behind.

From a pocket-sized device that speaks 22 Indian languages to a grant round spanning three continents.

My latest for TechCrunch:
https://t.co/uhtjfDdeHV

[Signals Ventures @SignalsVentures]

https://t.co/sHK7FAro2A

[Signals Ventures @SignalsVentures]

Signals: APAC Newsletter - Issue #22
APAC | Week 3, July 2026
One theme runs through this issue: the infrastructure of AI — chips, software, capital, and labor — is being contested at every level across the region.
➡️ Nvidia's Jensen Huang locked in deals across Japan's entire tech stack, from a $6.2B AI factory to Toyota and robotics makers
➡️ Hyundai's workers staged the world's first factory strike over humanoid robots
➡️ Kimi K3 is positioning as China's answer to the Western frontier labs
➡️ Shein, DeepSeek, and CXMT are all heading toward public markets

Link in comments 👇