Four categories every week: global impact investing, global venture capital, Taiwan VC and family offices, each with a link to the source.
Week of Sep 28, 2026
Asian asset owners including Temasek and the Tsao Family Office say regional climate investing is pressing ahead; the Asia Ocean Fund targets $75M across 30 Asia-Pacific deals.
Read source ↗At 2X Global's Montreal summit (270 participants from 44 countries), investors pushed to extend gender-lens strategies into public equities and debt, targeting $20B in new capital by 2027; FinDev Canada committed C$30M.
Read source ↗Bouri, who led the GIIN for 17 years, steps down after the October Amsterdam forum; the market grew from about $500B (2019) to $1.5T, yet he says systemic progress remains insufficient.
Read source ↗McKnight Foundation mapped 110+ community-owned climate projects across seven Midwest states (about $450M in total cost) and helped launch the $150M Power & Place fund to close the gap, even as climate-specialist VC fundraising slows.
Read source ↗Japan's outstanding impact investments reached about ¥18.65 trillion (~$125bn), and the first Impact Galleria Tokyo drew some 300 participants from 10 countries. AVPN noted Asia's real bottleneck is bankable deals, not capital.
Read source ↗ADB will host the Finance in Common Summit in Bangkok from 31 March to 2 April 2027, the first in Asia, gathering 500+ public development banks managing roughly $23trn and investing about $2.5trn a year—raising Asia's profile as a hub for mobilising private capital.
Read source ↗The EU's EmpCo Directive now applies: net-zero pledges need measurable, time-bound plans with independent verification, and offset-reliant products can no longer be labelled 'carbon neutral'. Banks are covered too, though at least 17 member states had not transposed it as of June.
Read source ↗Disability-lens VC Enable Ventures closed its fund at $50.3m (vs a $75m target), backed by the Ford Foundation, UnitedHealth Group and others. It has made 11 investments and plans about 24, signalling disability as an emerging impact theme.
Read source ↗The raise splits into $1.75B for seed/early stage and $4B for growth, targeting AI-native companies from infrastructure and models to apps and agents.
Read source ↗Island ($6.4B valuation) and Cyera each raised $400M, while Snorkel AI raised $350M at $3.2B; security, AI and health dominated the week's megadeals.
Read source ↗At least 114 Series A rounds of $100M+ have closed globally in 2026, totaling roughly $33B and on pace for a record; over 70% went to AI startups.
Read source ↗OpenAI is reportedly negotiating a round of at least $30B at roughly a $1.4T valuation, up from $852B in March, underscoring how heavily capital is concentrating in frontier AI ahead of its expected listing next year.
Read source ↗Consumer AI agent Instinct, which books travel, pays bills and shops for users, raised a $1B Series C from Sequoia, Benchmark and Coatue at a $10B valuation, about a month after a round at $2.5B, showing how fast capital is chasing AI agents.
Read source ↗Nvidia-backed British AI cloud provider Nscale lined up $3.36B in convertible notes led by Third Point and Nvidia ahead of an NYSE listing expected to value it around $35B, illustrating the scale of capital needed for AI data center buildouts.
Read source ↗Mynt, parent of Philippine e-wallet GCash, priced its IPO at 6.60 pesos a share to raise about 53B pesos (~$845M), with trading set for Oct. 20 and cornerstones including Capital Research and the IFC, a bellwether exit for Southeast Asian fintech.
Read source ↗Southeast Asian startups raised $7.25B in H1 2026, but $4.5B came from DayOne's single Series C; excluding it, funding fell 21% to $2.75B and median Series A size dropped to $8M, exposing a structural gap in growth-stage capital.
Read source ↗Lightspeed is raising $250M for its fifth India fund, with 80% already committed, to back early-stage AI startups in India and Southeast Asia; the fund is half the size of its $500M 2022 predecessor, signaling a leaner, more selective approach.
Read source ↗Instant-booking platform FunNow closed a ~NT$318M Series C from Hotai Motor, integrating with Hotai's chicTrip travel platform to expand into Japan and invest in AI; it entered IPO counseling in July.
Read source ↗Co-run by Standard Chartered, the Lih Jen Foundation and Impact Hub Taipei, the award's top three were an elder meal-delivery platform, a service-dog team and an AI fit-tech brand; nearly 120 women-led teams have been trained since 2023.
Read source ↗Founded by New York-based Taiwanese entrepreneur Huang Sheng-an, LANDED runs a three-phase program (validation, revenue, fundraising) and has backed nine startups since 2025, including YC S26 insurtech Qlo.
Read source ↗MOEA's SME and startup agency reported 555 deals worth US$2.774B in 2025, with AI startups raising US$569M (up ~80%) and semiconductors US$442M (up 70%+), showing capital concentrating in AI and chips.
Read source ↗VCSEL maker iReach closed a NT$340M round led by Da-Ying, joined by the National Development Fund and optical-comms strategic investors, to expand R&D and testing for AI chip-to-chip optical interconnects, targeting small-volume output in 2027-28.
Read source ↗Millimeter-wave startup TMYTEK (7812) moved from the emerging market to the Taiwan Innovation Board on Sept 22, closing at NT$70 versus a NT$60 offer price, a 16%+ gain and a marker for satellite and defense startups reaching public markets.
Read source ↗The TiBOOST program, backed by the FSC and NDC and run by TWSE, drew 100+ applications by Sept 29, about half from 19 countries abroad, and extended its deadline to Oct 5 to link AI startups with capital and industry partners.
Read source ↗Young Liu said Foxconn screens startups on timing, execution, synergy, explainability and exit planning; since 2019 its direct strategic bets show 20 successes out of 33, while its five funds count 321 out of 594, under a three-year review rule.
Read source ↗The NDC opened Talent Taiwan's first overseas office inside its Startup Island TAIWAN Silicon Valley hub; a parallel Career Day drew 3,000+ attendees and 14 Taiwanese firms, while 12 startups pitched at Taiwan Demo Day.
Read source ↗Citi's 2026 survey found 79% of APAC family offices invest directly and 80% name AI a primary sector focus, both the highest globally; 26% report YTD returns above 15%.
Read source ↗Only 31% of family offices pick a jurisdiction mainly for proximity to assets, with political and economic stability at 23% each; most now add jurisdictions rather than relocate, with Singapore and Hong Kong as key hubs.
Read source ↗Carlyle named David Seeberan global head of its family office group and ex-BlackRock Victoria Matthews to lead Europe and Asia, supporting its goal of raising $200B+ from private wealth by 2028.
Read source ↗RBC and Campden Wealth's survey of 155 North American family offices found nearly half of private-fund investors could not exit as planned, while non-family CEOs earn $721,000 versus $460,000 for family CEOs, putting liquidity and talent pricing at the center of family office governance.
Read source ↗The CEO of Rockstead Capital, a multi-family office with about US$1.4bn in assets, said requirements in MAS's streamlined single-family office framework favour private banks and could push boutique external asset managers toward families with under S$20m.
Read source ↗With AI supply-chain wealth swelling, Taiwan's state-run banks are chasing ultra-wealthy clients; Mega Bank's high-net-worth clients rose 19% to 2,232 with AUM above NT$264bn (+25%), as it builds around investment, financing and succession.
Read source ↗Northwestern Mutual rolled out Family Office Services combining legal, tax, investment, philanthropy and legacy planning for clients worth at least $50m, backed by 40-plus in-house specialists, as large firms productise family office capabilities.
Read source ↗Wealth Enhancement agreed to buy Boston-based RWA Wealth Partners, with about $22.46bn in client assets, lifting combined assets above $187.1bn and adding trust, estate and family governance expertise for its $25m-plus client tier.
Read source ↗Americana Partners, with $12.1bn in assets, launched a multi-family office unit led by Matt Celenza, folding in accounting capabilities from its 2026 NRT Consulting acquisition to serve US and Latin American UHNW families needing coordinated multigenerational planning.
Read source ↗Updated every Monday. Summaries capture the key points; please refer to the original sources for full details and figures.