Execution-First AI: The New Playbook for Venture Capital

Capital Signals | H1 2025 Edition- Inside the investor shift toward composable stacks, agentic platforms, and operational ROI across Asia’s retail and CPG ecosystem.

TLDR

In H1 2025, venture capital in Asia's Retail & CPG tech is laser-focused on "Execution-First AI." This means backing API-first, domain-specific AI agents and modular solutions that deliver tangible ROI, not just experimental tech. From intelligent store operations to autonomous commerce and monetisation-first platforms, investors are funding startups that solve immediate P&L problems and drive measurable productivity and engagement across the value chain.

In this edition of Capital Signals, I look at some of these strategic shifts and key thematic trends shaping VC investments. For founders, operators, and investors, this is your cheat sheet to what’s heating up, where VCs are leaning in, and who’s solving real execution problems. Let’s decode what’s next.

Thematic Signals: Retail & CPG through the lens of Venture Capital in Asia.

If 2024 was about platform dreams and generative AI hype cycles, then 2025 is all about getting real. Across Asia, early-stage VCs are tightening their filters, seeking startups that solve real P&L problems with domain-specific intelligence.

To get a pulse on thematic signals, I have looked at 60+ early & late-stage startups within the Retail & CPG tech domain which raised fresh capital across the Asia-Pacific region. To ensure representation across the entire value chain, my research focused on innovative startups across six solution clusters: Customer Engagement, Unified Commerce, Data & AI, Store Operations, Supply Chain & Logistics and lastly Back Office operations.

Here are the 3 key thematic signals emerging from the venture capital activity we have seen so far in the region.

1. Execution-First AI is replacing Foundational AI

"Execution-First AI" is the new mantra; investors are backing AI solutions that deliver immediate, quantifiable business value by streamlining existing workflows and enhancing decision-making.

As a result, AI is no longer infrastructure; it's now seen as an execution engine. Moving past the large model hype, investors are now backing startups deploying deeply vertical AI—not just horizontal analytics—across marketing, store execution, and “perfect store” automation. Funding is targeting those who can prove revenue lift, stock optimisation, or campaign precision for physical and omnichannel retailers with sector-specific AI/ML models

The key drivers for investment in these solutions are their composable, stackable nature, their ability to deliver instantaneous actions and feedback, and their capacity to provide measurable revenue leverage.

Examples of Execution-First AI Startups

• Almonds AI (India) – Secured $1.9M Seed (Feb 2025) to build AI-powered loyalty and partner engagement solutions.

• Populix (Indonesia) – Closed $4.3M Series B (Apr 2025) for AI-based consumer research and insights to optimise product launches.

• Wrtn Co (Korea) – Raised $73.5M Series B (Mar 2025) for an AI content creation and assistant platform integrating multiple LLMs to perform commerce and marketing tasks.

• SleekFlow (Singapore): ($7M Series A+, Aug 2024) – Omnichannel Conversation Suite for AI-automated customer interactions.

• Leylah (India): ($1.46M Seed, undisclosed recent date) – AI-led platform enabling creators to seamlessly monetise content with affiliate links on social platforms.

• ReShop (Australia): ($17M Series B, Jan 2025) – FinTech platform transforming refunds into instant, value-driven processes to drive rapid repeat purchases.

Complimenting this drive for execution, Trusted & Scalable AI is becoming a priority

As retailers and CPG manufacturers integrate dozens of AI models—from productivity tools to customer engagement agents—the risk of unsecured, opaque, or misused AI grows significantly. Investors now recognise the need for platforms that ensure safe, compliant, and auditable AI operations, especially as autonomous agents scale across workflows.

Example of AI Governance Platform:

• Singulr AI (India) – Raised $10M Seed (Feb–Mar 2025) from Nexus Venture Partners and Dell Technologies for its enterprise-grade AI governance platform. It enables real-time monitoring, risk detection, and policy enforcement across generative AI and LLM deployments in retail, finance, and supply chain.

Why This Matters:

• This shift unlocks operational ROI and defensible IP. Investors are now demanding rapid, use-case-specific returns—AI tools that solve real-world brand/retailer challenges, improve metrics, and deploy in weeks, not years.

• As a result, funding is moving from core “plumbing” (POS, order orchestration, unified commerce SaaS) toward startups developing AI agents and autonomous orchestration tools that proactively manage marketing, pricing, supply chain, and operations, delivering business outcomes (e.g., auto-replenishment, dynamic pricing, customer re-engagement) with minimal human touch.

• SingulrAI’s funding shows that retailers and CPGs can’t afford uncontrolled AI proliferation, investors see high value in solutions that enable safe, cost-efficient AI adoption for business-critical use cases

2. Shift to Agentic and Autonomous Commerce

The commerce landscape is undergoing a significant transformation, driven by the emergence of API-first Agentic platforms that are strategically solving narrow pain points within the commerce stack, rather than attempting to rebuild entire systems from the ground up. This focused approach allows for rapid, precise innovation by building modular, autonomous AI agents. These agents plug seamlessly into existing retail stacks, handling everything from customer support to supply chain adjustments with minimal human intervention, focusing purely on outcome-oriented, self-learning execution.

This shift is reflected in venture capital trends, which now decisively target these AI-driven, agentic commerce solutions. This field is still rapidly evolving, attracting significant activity from global tech giants like Google Shopping (e.g., AI Mode, virtual try-ons, agentic checkout), OpenAI (exploring in-chat commerce and payment systems), and Perplexity (integrating AI-powered shopping and agentic browsing). In Asia, investors are particularly aggressive in hunting for such opportunities, recognising the immense potential for agentic solutions to redefine the region's dynamic retail landscape.

Startup Examples of Agentic & Autonomous Commerce (Asia, Recently Funded):

• Manus (China/Singapore): ($75M Series A, May 2025) – Automating e-commerce store management and merchandising via AI agents.

• Omnichat (Hong Kong/SEA): ($10M Series A+, Feb 2025) – Piloting fully agentic customer journeys, evolving conversational AI into autonomous engagement agents.

• Krutrim (India): ($44M early 2025) – Consumer-level agentic AI for productized autonomous workflows like booking or ordering.

• Antom Copilot (Ant International, China): (July 2025 upgrade) – AI agent for merchant payment services, expanding capabilities across integration, onboarding, and risk.

• ShopOS (India): ($20M Seed, June 2025) – AI-based OS using agents for core e-commerce tasks like listings and marketing

Why it matters:

• Rather than backing giant, monolithic platforms, VCs are supporting composable, stackable commerce solutions that plug into existing workflows, not rip and replace tech.

• Startups attracting the most funding are those that enable instantaneous actions and feedback (e.g., instant refunds, real-time recommendations, creator-triggered checkouts) versus those offering only incremental process improvement.

3. Operational ROI is the new benchmark.

Amidst tougher market conditions, VCs are converging around startups that promise and deliver clear, quantifiable improvements in operational ROI, especially across in-store execution, supply chain efficiencies, and back-office automation. What matters most to both founders and investors is proof of efficiency, cost takeout, and productivity improvements, not just digitising old processes.

Store Operations: Automating for Labour Efficiency & Consistency

What’s Shifting: VCs are backing platforms that minimise workforce complexity and automate staff-intensive tasks. Robotics, AI-driven scheduling, visual merchandising, and loss prevention are attracting capital due to measurable labour savings and improved compliance.

• Example Startups:

  • Flagship (Australia) — Digital visual merchandising SaaS for retail ($3.75M Seed, Coreline Ventures).

  • Deeping Source (Japan) — Vision AI for in-store process optimisation (Series B, KDDI).

  • Auror ( Australia ) -Crime / Loss prevention platform for retail.( $45M Series C, Reinventure Group)

  • StaffAny (Singapore) — AI-driven workforce scheduling, regionally expanding (Seed, Angel Central/Iterative).

Why This Matters: These solutions let retailers do more with less, boosting operational consistency while reducing staffing headaches and shrinkage.

Supply Chain: AI-Native, Platform-Led Orchestration

What’s Shifting: Investment is moving from asset-heavy or manual processes to cloud-native, automated, and highly visual supply chain platforms that offer real-time control and end-to-end transparency.

• Example Startups:

  • CapGrid (India) — AI-driven manufacturing supply chain traceability ($5M Series A, Nexus/Axilor).

  • CADDI (Japan) — AI-powered manufacturing procurement, global scale ($38M Late Stage, Atomico).

  • Locad (Singapore) — Cloud-native, API-led logistics orchestration for Southeast Asia ($9M Pre-Series B, Reefknot/Global Ventures).

  • BackOps AI ( India )- A supply chain automation startup focused on bringing AI into logistics and procurement workflows ( 46M, Seed, Construct Capital, Gradient, 10VC)

Why This Matters: These platforms enable brands and retailers to reduce/ optimise their supply chain & procurement costs and access to flex capacity, directly impacting margin and resilience.

Back Office: Intelligent Infrastructure and Agentic Automation

What’s Shifting: Funding now clusters around intelligent AI platforms for HR, payroll, finance, and IT Ops—moving beyond siloed digitisation toward agentic co-pilots, auto-finops, and collaborative SaaS.

• Example Startups:

  • HR Tech is very hot.

    • BrioHR (Malaysia) — HR SaaS platform streamlining workforce management and compliance ($6.5M Series A, Openspace Ventures).

    • OmniHR Singapore (Seed $7.4M Picus Capital, Alpha JWC, January Capital)

    • Darwin Box India -AI HRMS platform (Late Stage $140M Partners Group, KKR)

  • Lucidity (India) — FinOps platform optimising cloud costs for retail infrastructure ($21M Series A, Elevation Capital).

  • Hyperbots (Singapore) — Agentic AI for finance/accounting automation ($6.5M Series A, Arkam/Athera Ventures).

Why This Matters: Intelligent ops tools free up teams, highlight cost savings automatically, and enable fast, accurate decisions in complex operations, crucial for scale and profit discipline.

Bottom line is this: efficiency, automation, and ROI are now the core criteria for early-stage funding in Asian retail and CPG tech.

Final thoughts

This edition of Capital Signal scan clearly shows venture funding is prioritising execution-first innovation in Asian retail and CPG tech.

The era of generic platforms and theoretical AI is over. Instead, capital is flowing into composable, API-first solutions that artificial intelligence is directly embedded into operations. Investors are demanding sharper ROI, faster go-to-market, and measurable productivity and engagement gains.

The startups securing funding are those delivering these precise, verticalized tools – from AI agents enabling autonomous commerce to platforms driving monetisation and operational efficiency. Ultimately, the new benchmark for success in this space is operational ROI, demonstrating a clear shift from hype to tangible business value