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[SINGAPORE] Fourteen Singapore companies have been featured on the 2025 Forbes Asia “100 to Watch” list, released on Tuesday (Aug 26).

The list highlights notable small companies and startups on the rise across the Asia-Pacific region, with this year’s edition flagging an increased focus on artificial intelligence and deep technology.

India led the way with 18 companies on the fifth edition of the list, followed by Singapore and Japan in joint-second with 14. China followed with nine companies, while Indonesia and South Korea had eight each and Australia had seven.

Biotechnology and healthcare featured heavily in the list, with 18 companies, followed by enterprise technology and robotics with 16 companies.

The Startup Genome’s Global Startup Ecosystem Report 2024 put Singapore’s startup ecosystem in seventh place, with the Republic taking the top spot in Asia in terms of venture funding deal volume and value as at November last year.

Forbes said the 100 companies on the list had raised US$3 billion in funding to date, up from US$2 billion compared with the 2024 list.

To qualify for consideration in the list, companies had to have headquarters in Asia-Pacific, be privately owned and for-profit, and have a maximum annual revenue of US$50 million. They also must have a maximum of US$100 million in total funding as at Aug 15.

The Singapore companies on the list and their corresponding industries of operation are:

• Aether Fuels (energy and green tech)

• Aevice Health (biotechnology and healthcare)

• AlphaLife Sciences (biotechnology and healthcare)

• Augmentus (enterprise technology and robotics)

• Cinch (consumer technology)

• Finmo (finance)

• HPC-AI Tech (enterprise technology and robotics)

• Little Farms (food and hospitality)

• Locad (industry and manufacturing)

• Nuevocor (biotechnology and healthcare)

• Prefer (food and hospitality)

• Supermom (consumer technology)

• Venti Technologies (industry and manufacturing)

• WatchTowr (enterprise technology and robotics)

Other companies on the list such as South Korea’s Aetech have also been eyeing Singapore expansions, while Seoul-based EverEx and Hong Kong’s KPay have their products in use in the Republic.

Singapore-based financing also features on the list among the other companies. Bangladesh’s Shomvob raised US$1 million in pre-seed funding led by venture capital firm Cocoon Capital, while Soft Space in Malaysia raised US$31.5 million in a funding round led by private equity firm Southern Capital Group.