AI Across East Asia Startup Showcase
Join us for the finale of Outbound's pilot showcase series where we'll features founders across East Asia!
East Asia has produced 400+ unicorns, led by global giants like Samsung, Tencent, and SoftBank — with deep ecosystems across China, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan
The region combines world-class hardware, semiconductors, and advanced manufacturing with frontier AI and robotics — powered by companies like TSMC and dense R&D clusters in Seoul, Shenzhen, and Tokyo
East Asian founders often build with global supply chains and export markets in mind from day one, creating companies that scale quickly across borders in gaming, mobility, consumer electronics, fintech, and applied AI
Yet despite this momentum, much of US early-stage capital still operates with a domestic-first lens, not due to lack of interest, but lack of exposure, context, and trusted pathways.
Outbound exists to bridge that gap, curating an invite-only virtual event connecting exceptional non-US founders with US-based angels, VCs, and strategic operators who don't want to miss out on the next wave of innovation.
What to expect
Live pitches from a small group of standout founders
Moderated discussion and Q&A
A shared guest list in advance
Post-event follow-ups where there’s clear mutual interest
Who is presenting?
(Korea) Ex-Qualcomm NPU engineer working on a local LLM deployment protocol.
(Japan) Biology PhD utilizing proprietary epigenetic profiling to predict the clinical success of advanced therapies.
(Japan) Robotics specialists building a modular robot system for Japan's aging workforce. Already in key pilots across Japan.
Outbound Collective is an initiative by Salvador Dueñas (Chicago:Blend) and Alejandro Estevez (Pear VC) to platform and invest in startups abroad. Since 2018 most newly minted unicorns have been founded outside of the States and with US visa programs tightening, we expect startup talent to be more geographically distributed than ever before. See the announcement here here.