Half the market will not take your money: The access problem for regulated startups

Sales of winter products surged at South Korean convenience stores as temperatures fell sharply this month, industry sources said Friday. According to retailers, sales of disposable hand warmers at GS25 convenience stores, operated by GS Retail Co., rose more than elevenfold in the first seven days of this month compared with the previous week. Sales of tights, worn to keep warm, increased by a similar margin. Demand for popular winter snacks and beverages, such as instant fish cakes, baked sweet potatoes and traditional tea, climbed 653 percent, 132 percent and 50.2 percent, respectively, over the period. CU convenience stores, operated by BGF Retail Co., reported a 400 percent increase in sales of disposable hand warmers over the same period. "As cold weather sets in, sales of winter snacks and cold-weather gear are rising sharply," an industry official said.

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won said Friday his business group will make efforts to build a new semiconductor cluster in the southwestern part of the country as quickly as possible to meet growing global demand. Chey made the remarks during a visit to Gwangju Air Base in the southwestern Jeonnam-Gwangju region, where SK hynix Inc. has proposed building a new chip cluster. "Once the conditions are met, we plan to build (the new cluster) as quickly as possible," Chey said. "Demand for chips is growing rapidly, and the current situation requires us to accelerate the pace of supply to keep up with demand," he added. The chairman said the group still needs to determine when construction will begin but stressed that it intends to break ground as soon as possible. Chey noted that demand for chips is expected to grow significantly, adding that the proposed cluster will be around two-thirds the size of the one currently under construction in Yongin, just south of Seoul. It marked Chey's first visit to the region since the conglomerate unveiled its building plan in June. Earlier in the year, SK hynix

Asia’s AI founders do not lack investor attention. What they lack is the expensive plumbing frontier AI demands: models, compute, technical help and patient capital. Granite Asia and Google AI Futures Fund want to bundle all of it into one programme. The Singapore-headquartered VC firm, which manages around US$11 billion in assets and co-managed capital, […] The post Ecosystem Roundup: Granite Asia, Google bundle cash and compute for Asia’s AI founders appeared first on e27.

The crypto market is reeling. Bitcoin trades around US$80,550 to US$81,000. Ethereum trades near US$2,410 to US$2,470. Both assets dropped sharply on October 9, 2026. An aggressive deleveraging wave and broader macro risk-off sentiment drove the decline. Bitcoin fell about 3.3 per cent to 4 per cent over the last 24 hours. It dropped from […] The post From US$86,500 to US$81,000: The anatomy of a crypto deleveraging wave appeared first on e27.

For years, online retail has been organised around a simple assumption: the customer journey begins on a search engine, marketplace, brand website, or app. That assumption is starting to look dated. A new Salesforce report suggests that more shoppers are now beginning with a question to an AI system, whether through ChatGPT-style assistants built on […] The post AI chats are becoming the new starting point for online shopping appeared first on e27.

Sarawak is not usually the first place that comes to mind when Southeast Asia’s artificial intelligence race is discussed. Singapore has the region’s densest cloud and startup ecosystem, Malaysia’s Johor has been drawing data centre investment because of its proximity to Singapore, and Indonesia has been positioning itself around scale, talent and natural resources. A […] The post SoftBank, Grab, PETROS explore AI infra platform in Sarawak appeared first on e27.

The Cove lineup consists of three speakers, and can even work with JBL soundbars to create a home theatre setup.

I’ve worked a lot with the Microsoft stack, and for a long time Excel was its staple. It gave Microsoft a foothold inside companies. Once a company ran its budgets, forecasts and operations in Excel, Microsoft could sell a lot of other products around it. It became embedded in the organisation. And after decades of […] The post AI labs are chasing a slice of the corporate pie in Southeast Asia appeared first on e27.

The event will show just how serious Apple is about making a push into the smart home market.

Jenni is an academic research and writing platform used by more than six million researchers, who have written over 15 million papers on it. The US-headquartered company says it passed US$10 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) this year and is profitable, having grown almost entirely from revenue after raising only a small angel round. […] The post Why Jenni thinks researchers need more than ChatGPT for academic writing appeared first on e27.

DePIN (Decentralised Physical Infrastructure Networks) crowdsources real-world resources like compute, storage, and connectivity via blockchain incentives. RWA tokenisation brings tangible assets (real estate, commodities, infrastructure) on-chain for fractional ownership, liquidity, and global access. Together, they address SEA’s challenges: high infrastructure costs, limited banking reach, and volatility in local currencies. Global tokenised RWA (excluding stablecoins) surpassed […] The post DePIN and RWA alliances in 2026: Global momentum meets SEA opportunities appeared first on e27.

There’s a fundamental question that most leaders are avoiding right now, not because it’s too hard, but because the answer is uncomfortable. If you don’t understand where scarcity lives in the current economy, and you keep focusing on supplying more into markets with less demand or that are already overcrowded, you’ve forgotten Economics 101. Scarcity […] The post Are you leading with people? Or are you leading with tech? appeared first on e27.