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ikigai Insights

On Our Radar: AI-Native Professional Services

Part One

On Our Radar is our way of sharing ideas we’d like to see founders tackle. If one of these excites you, take it as validation to dive in. You don’t need to be working on one of these to apply. We’ll be posting more of these soon.


AI-Native Professional Services in Asia

Professional services in Asia are enormous and almost entirely labor-intensive. The model hasn’t changed in 40 years: humans applying time to information processing, contract drafting, analysis, and advice. Accounting & tax, legal, management consulting, staffing, insurance brokerage, and wealth management add up to well over $500B in annual spend across Asia Pacific ex-China. Every one of these is exactly what AI is now compressing.

We want to fund companies that don’t just sell software into these industries - they sell the work itself. We’re especially interested in the following service categories:

  • Insurance brokerage

  • Staffing & recruiting

  • Accounting & tax

- Max Hsieh, Mentor at 886 Studios & Co-Founder of Forma


The next round of acceptances closes on August 16th.

We’re hosting an AMA with the ikigai mentors this Thursday (8/13 @12:30 PM). Sign up here to join and come with any questions you might have.

Apply here.

To learn more, visit our website.

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