The AI boom is the first platform shift where there are ‘real advantages’ of building from Asia, says Antler’s founder and CEO Magnus Grimeland

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Despite its fragmented markets and myriad of cultures and spoken languages, Asia is becoming an increasingly popular home for budding tech and AI entrepreneurs, according to Magnus Grimeland, the founder and CEO of venture capital firm Antler. “Going to the U.S. to build companies is still very popular and we see that happening at scale,” Grimeland said at the Fortune Southeast Asia 500 Summit in Vietnam on Nov. 3. “[But] for the first time ever in one of these platform shifts, there are real advantages in Asia that will lead to a lot of the leading companies being built out of here.” According to Crunchbase data, investors poured $42.8 billion into startup funding rounds across all of Asia in the second quarter of 2026—the highest quarterly total in over three years. In Grimeland’s telling, several factors make Asia an appealing home for startups: a rapidly growing electricity grid, and an abundance of advanced chips and AI engineering talent. “If you look at global power…

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