The Radical Fund, Southeast Asia’s climate-focused venture capital firm, has announced the launch of The Studio, UTOPIA’s artificial intelligence (AI)-native venture builder supporting high-potential founders and technical experts across the Global South.
The firm said in a statement on Friday that the Studio complements the Radical Fund beyond capital by providing structured venture-building, advanced AI/machine learning (ML) infrastructure, commercialization support, and a clear pathway to scale into the Middle East.
It sits within UTOPIA’s integrated platform, alongside The Radical Fund in Southeast Asia and A-typical Ventures in the Middle East.
Since its launch in 2023, The Radical Fund has invested in 10 companies across Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam, across multiple climate-related sectors including renewable energy, clean mobility, circular economy, supply chain tech, nature-based solutions, and water.
This expansion comes at a critical moment: Southeast Asia is undergoing rapid digitalization, facing intensifying climate pressures, and experiencing surging demand for AI-enabled infrastructure, spanning data centers, industrial automation, and energy transition technologies.
Yet founders still struggle to access domain-specific support, AI engineering talent, and early customers willing to adopt frontier technologies.
The Studio fills this gap, providing founders in Southeast Asia and within The Radical Fund’s portfolio with access to Utopia OS (a modular AI infrastructure layer enabling rapid product iteration, automation, and scaling from concept to Series A in under 24 months); hands-on product, technical, and commercial support from a 12+ person team spanning product, AI/ML, engineering, go-to-market, and operations; cross-border market access, helping Southeast Asian-born companies expand into the Middle East, where demand for AI infrastructure, energy systems, water, logistics, and industrial solutions is accelerating.
This integrated model ensures Southeast Asian founders gain the speed, technical leverage, and global exposure required to compete in increasingly data- and capital-intensive markets.
The Studio’s company building roadmap focuses on opportunity clusters aligned with Radical’s climate thesis and broader Utopia thematic Problem Oriented Deep Dives – “PODs”.
These include: Infrastructure Intelligence (predictive and autonomous systems for infrastructure, utilities, and transport operations); decarb industry (intelligent operating systems for industrial decarbonization across logistics, materials, and heavy industry); sovereign systems (building sovereign digital, compute, and energy infrastructure for growing economies); flow rails (programmable rails for money movement and economic coordination); vertical domain intelligence (purpose-built domain expert-led software for healthcare and food security).
“We are building with people who’ve spent years operating patients, designing built environments, and designing drug formulations, these are domain-experts and operators who know exactly where inefficiencies lie and can validate where breakthrough opportunities exist,
“The Studio turns that lived experience into venture-scale companies by providing product, go-to-market and company building support with AI operational leverage, which these
founders can’t easily assemble alone,” said Karan Pinto, Director at The Studio.
“Our PODs are compounding engines, designed to help create the commercial rails for founders, partners and co-investors, focusing on areas such as infrastructure intelligence, industry decarbonization and sovereign systems,
“We focus on overlooked regionally relevant problems, grounded in needs that stay constant and do not change in the next decade, even as the underlying technologies and tools evolve so rapidly,” he added.
Alina Truhina, Managing Partner of The Radical Fund, said the Studio is the final piece of the puzzle in our UTOPIA platform, bringing together the firm’s funds, founders, and technology to efficiently scale ideas into investable ventures across the Global South.
“From our new base, we now provide hands-on support, deep technical expertise, and access to fast capital to power AI-native, climate- focused, and tech-enabled ventures where they are most needed,
“Unlike accelerators or open programs, The Studio is highly selective and curated – designed for industry specialists with deep experience and unique data access in their fields,” she added.
It is noted that The Studio is actively seeking exceptional domain experts and entrepreneurs across Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and other emerging markets to join the Co-Build Fellowship.
The organization is also expanding its world-class team of product, AI, commercial, and operations experts.
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