The Great Career Leap: More Corporate Professionals Becoming Startup Founders

Singapore, 17 December 2025 -- AngelCentral, an established angel investor club in ASEAN, has analysed data from over 1,000 startup applications received through its platform in 2025. This release highlights a resilient entrepreneurial spirit in Singapore and the region, with no slowdown in startups seeking funding despite a tougher fundraising climate.

No Slow Down in Entrepreneurial Drive

Despite ongoing global headwinds and a noticeably cautious funding environment, startup activity in Singapore and the region shows no sign of slowing. AngelCentral has received over 1,000 startup applications in 2025, up from 900 in 2024.

This steady increase highlights the resilience of the entrepreneurial spirit in Singapore and Southeast Asia. Even as fundraising conditions tighten and investors are stricter with funding, aspiring founders continue to pursue opportunities to build and scale companies. For the ecosystem, this signals that entrepreneurial ambition remains undeterred, and the pipeline of new ventures is as strong as ever.

Growth of AI first startups

In 2025, AI-related startups on the AngelCentral platform grew by 21.05% compared to 2024, showing an acceleration in the startups that have AI and machine learning as their core product – a clear sign that entrepreneurs continue to ride the latest technology.

The next largest group of startups are in the SaaS, Data Management, EduTech, Healthcare Tech, as well as Banking and FinTech sectors, which reflects steady demand for digital solutions across core industries.

Shifting to Deeptech startups

Startups in the Energy & Environmental Renewables, Hardware, MediaTech and Impact & Sustainability spaces also showed noticeable increases in application volume on the AngelCentral platform in 2025. These sectors usually rely on patents on core technologies that come out of universities or research institutes.

For instance, our angel members recently syndicated an investment into a water-purification technology startup addressing Southeast Asia’s clean-water challenges. The core nano technology came out of a local university research.

More Corporate Professionals Making the Leap

A third notable trend from AngelCentral’s 2025 application data is the increasing number of corporate professionals transitioning into entrepreneurship. This year, 77.06% of founders who applied through our platform came from corporate backgrounds, significantly outweighing serial or fresh graduate founders. This data suggests that more individuals with industry expertise, domain knowledge, and established professional networks are choosing to pursue entrepreneurial paths, even against the backdrop of a challenging fundraising climate.

For the startup ecosystem, this is a positive as it indicates a broadening and maturing founder pipeline – one that is increasingly driven by problem-solvers with real-world exposure and a clearer understanding of the gaps they aim to address.

What This Means for Angel Investors

The findings from AngelCentral’s internal data analysis of founders and startups in the Southeast Asia region in 2025 shows a thriving entrepreneurial landscape in the region – one that continues to attract new entrants in the fields of AI, deeptech and impact despite a challenging fundraising environment.

About AngelCentral
Founded in 2018, AngelCentral’s goal is to help build a community of effective angel investors in Southeast Asia. We organise regular curated pitch sessions, angel education workshops and provide syndication services for our members, to help them invest better and develop as good angel investors. To date, we have trained and assisted >1000 angels regionally, and our members have invested >S$38m into startups.
https://www.angelcentral.co

Media Contact

Huang Shao-Ning
Chief Angel and Partner
E: support@angelcentral.co