Richard Armstrong on why Asia's AI infrastructure build-out is the most underpriced opportunity right now

Richard runs an early-stage venture firm, now on its fourth fund after seventeen years investing, splitting his time mainly between Bangkok, Singapore, San Francisco and New York. The fund writes pre-seed through Series A checks, typically $100,000 to $2 million, and has backed 17 unicorns across fintech, e-commerce and social commerce. Right now the sharpest focus is the AI infrastructure and compute build-out in Asia, alongside energy, cybersecurity and financial services.

What makes him pass on a deal that looks good on paper: the team doesn't look like the right one to execute, or the market isn't really there. His shorthand, borrowing from Marc Andreessen: a great team and a great market together is when it actually works.

His pick for what most people haven't priced in yet: the compute and energy build-out behind AI infrastructure in Asia, particularly Southeast Asia and APAC - a region he thinks is under-represented despite being one of the few places positioned to supply both the US and Chinese markets.