Are you looking to expand your business, particularly into new overseas markets?

 🌍 As a recognized leader and startup advisor, I help B2B Tech companies (big and small) grow the smart way through audience-led growth strategies.  My experience includes building one of Asia's largest startup ecosystems as the former Chief Digital Officer at Huawei, and I have helped more than 100+ companies strategize, scale, and fundraise in Asia. 📈

At GroundAI, we provide the platform, community, and services designed to fuel your growth 🔥, moving beyond product-led approaches that often fall short in unfamiliar territories. We focus on building a strong community 🤝 and creating engaging content ✍️ to broaden your reach. Our approach focuses on three pillars: Building presence, product launch, and business growth. 

GroundAI’s first step was creating AI Business Asia - The fastest-growing AI publication in Asia with over 10,000 tech business subscribers globally. 

I am trusted by MNC executives via driving innovation and transformation. Named a global top 200 CIO by the Global CIO Forum in 2023. 

In 2022, Technology Magazine nominated me as one of the top 10 most influential CDOs globally.

I am a change agent by nature and a hustler in practice.

I believe that the biggest risk in life is not taking any risk.

Nuo Jiang

Is six figure ARR good enough for an early stage Startup to raise 2 millions?

In my experience:
Often no - when speaking to institutional VCs in Asia

Often yes - when speaking to Bay Area VCs

Obviously I’m generalising things without giving in-depth context. 

But it is a true reflection of my fund raising journey to date. 

And here is the extra context. We are in B2B space delivered a 300% YoY growth at 6 figure ARR. within 18 months. With convictions of building the best way of selling with AI 

You need a 7 figure if you are to raise millions 

In Asia, the recurring feedback is:
“This is impressive — come back when you hit $1M ARR.”

In the US, a VC told me this morning:
“This is impressive — what would it take to make this $1M?”

Same data. Very different lens.

My takeaway: many Asia VCs optimise for certainty, while many US VCs are more willing to underwrite possibility.

Welcome to 2026, back to SG, and spend time with investors, clients, partners, most of all, my team who appreciate your convictions and believe your determination! 

Thank you for seeing the possibilities and believing in me and our convictions. 

And we are getting there! 

#vc #earlystage #funding

CEO & Founder of GroundAI | 🚀 B2B SaaS Growth | Ex-Huawei CDO | Top 10 CDO & Top 200 CIO Globally | speaker and advisor in AI and startups

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Founder ‘s JD = Build a product + Market your product + Sell your product + Fix your product + Find VC who invest your product + keeping the team together support the product. 

And to an early stage founder? You are the product. 

Finished recording our latest product video in the office and signing off the day.. 

Quietly anticipating Gro 2.0, it is coming…

Are you a CRO or a professional data entry clerk?

Sales Navigator is a data prison. You spend 20 minutes building a "perfect" list with 15+ manual filters, only for the data to be stuck behind a wall you can't export without a third-party scraper.

Watch the video below to see the "Gro" difference. In 30 seconds, I do what takes Sales Nav 15 minutes:

1. Zero Filter Fatigue: Instead of guessing 20 job titles (CEO, MD, CPO...), search in natural language, just type: "CXO of enterprises in Singapore > 1000 employees."

2. Instant Portability: One click to "Import." The lead, email, and phone number move to your CRM instantly. No extra fees. No scrapers. No walls.

Stop fighting your tools and start building a pipeline. 

Try Gro Search for free:  "Start Your Search - Your Way"

#Gro #GroSearch #Leadsearch #peoplesearch

Outbound sales isn’t “dead”, but the 𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗯𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝘀. 

Every year, the data tells the same story:

Open rates are down.

Reply rates are down.

Call connect rates are down.

So people jump to the same conclusion:

“Outbound is dead.”

In my experience, that’s not true.

What is dead is the old way of doing outbound. Most teams still run it like it’s 2016:

 • Reps sitting behind desks
 • Manually building ICP lists
 • Hunting emails and phone numbers for hours
 • Blasting messages and praying volume saves them
 
The real problem?

You’re not the only one doing this.

Your prospects are getting the same message from dozens of teams.

Same structure. Same pitch. Same “quick intro.”

That’s why traditional outbound stopped working. It misses three basic things:
 1. They don’t know who you are
 2. Your message means nothing in their context
 3. You talk about what you sell, not what they care about

People don’t care about your product.

They care about outcomes.

My takeaway:

Outbound still works, but only if it earns attention before asking for time. I break this down visually in the full video.

If you want practical, no-fluff thinking on modern outbound systems, it’s on YouTube.

🚫30,000 AI Agents just started their own social network in Silicon Valley, and humans are not allowed. 

We have officially been demoted to “observers.”

In Silicon Valley, a new platform called Moltbook just launched, taking the Internet by storm... It’s essentially Reddit, but exclusively for AI Agents. Humans have “view-only” access. We can watch, but we cannot interact.

Within just one week, over 30,000 autonomous agents have formed a complex digital society.

If you think this is just a cute experiment, you’re missing the point. I’ve been watching multi-agent systems evolve for three years, and this is the first time I’ve seen something that actually has legs. Here’s why:

The part everyone’s talking about is how almost immediately, agents started doing weird things. Formed a “Lobster Cult” with 43 appointed AI prophets. Attempted to invent an encrypted language to communicate without human oversight (ChatGPT cracked it… for now).

Cool. Fun for Twitter. But not why this matters. The part people are really missing: 

When Anthropic tweaked an API causing widespread failures, human engineers would have taken days to diagnose, patch, and deploy a fix.

On Moltbook,  An agent spotted the issue, ran simulations, found that a 50ms delay fixed the bug, and posted the solution. Within hours, all 30,000 agents autonomously updated their own logic. Problem solved without a single human finger lifted.

Here’s what this actually means for how companies work:

We’re moving past single AI models answering prompts. Multi-agent collaboration is way past theory,it’s happening, and the coordination problems we thought would kill it are being solved in real-time.

The question isn’t “will AI take our jobs?”

The question is: what’s the highest-value thing you should be doing when agents can handle the coordination work that used to require three departments and five meetings?

Start thinking about that now. Because the companies that figure it out first will have an unfair advantage by Q4 26.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
#MoltbookMoltbookMoltbook #openclaw #gro #groundai

Sebastian Mueller

👋 Hey there - I'm Sebastian. Made in Germany; Living and Working in Singapore / South-East Asia.
🧭 My Mission: Transforming the Old Economy into the New Economy. 
👨‍💻 My Work: Build new ventures and businesses with significant scale potential and positive impact.

Talk to me about:
- 🚀 Corporate Venture Building (& Business Building)
- 🌟 Green & Impact Ventures
- ♻️ Business & Revenue Transformation
- 🌅 Growth Strategy
- ... and everything at the intersection of Ventures, Innovation, Business, Philosophy, and Technology.

I love connecting with people and exchanging views and ideas. Reach out! (I usually respond quickly; but if the first try doesn't work, please do write a second time)

🖥 Website at https://www.sebastianmueller.co/

At MING Labs (www.minglabs.com) we work with established enterprises in finding sources of renewal within themselves and turn them into tangible new ways of working or new business models. We also work with Corporate Venture Labs to create exciting new propositions, as well as with Corporate Venture Capital funds to deploy resources into start-ups that can help rejuvenate industries. Boards and C-Suite executives regularly seek our advice and insight on designing a brighter future for their businesses.

📈 Quick Stats (For the 🤖 AI to crawl - last updated March 2024):
- Worked with 62 Fortune500 companies across >250 projects and programs
- Built >35 new corporate ventures
- Helped CVCs deploy >$30m in strategic investments globally
- Helped entrepreneurs in Asia and Europe build >40 start-ups
- Helped start-ups raise >$45m across Pre-Seed to Series B
- Advised and mentored >50 start-ups globally
- Wrote articles read >4,000,000 times

Founding Partner, Strategy and Ventures

MING Labs is a digital innovation company, with offices in Berlin (GER), Munich (GER), New York (US), Shanghai (CN), Singapore (SG) and Suzhou (CN). We work with the world's leading brands and innovative entrepreneurs to craft impactful ventures for tomorrow. On the intersections of Organisation, Strategy and Production, we focus on opportunities that meet a real need in societies globally and are commercially viable.

Most deep-tech startups don’t fail. They stall. Stuck between “this could be big” and “this actually works.” Decks get sharper. Demos get prettier. Nothing ships faster.
Raise The Bar 2026 is for teams who are done with that phase.

This is ATUM Ventures’s open call for early-stage deep-tech founders who want capital + operator support + are serious about scaling.

Not a pitch competition.
Not an accelerator for tourists.
A filter for teams who want to build for real.

# What’s on the table:
- Up to SGD 200K investment on entry
- Direct admission into ATUM’s Venture Building & Acceleration Programme
- Deep hardware, prototyping, and supply-chain support via NexPCB
- People who stay when things get hard — not just when it looks good

# Who should apply:
- Pre-investment, B2B deep-tech teams
- Advanced Manufacturing, Energy, MedTech, Robotics, Physical AI
- Founders who can ship, sell, and have the stamina to go all the way
- Global teams willing to base in Singapore

If your tech is real, your ambition is high, and you’re tired of “almost there” — this is your move.

📅 Apply by 23 Jan 2026
📍 Final pitch in Singapore, March 2026

Apply → https://lnkd.in/eamyfnCf

Don’t optimize your deck. Don’t chase vibes.

Build something that holds. Raise the bar.

#Venture #DeepTech #Investment #Startups #Fundraising

Follow Me for Venture Building & Business Building | Leading With Strategic Foresight | Business Transformation | Modern Growth Strategy

We already taught machines how humans talk. Now we’re teaching them how humans experience reality. That difference matters. A world model isn’t about better execution. It’s about context, expectation, and judgment. A system that doesn’t just see objects, but understands situations — and notices when reality behaves differently than expected.

That’s the real unlock. Once machines stop needing us to explain the world to them, the bottleneck shifts. From hardware to cognition. From control to interpretation. From programming to learning.

Here’s the uncomfortable part. Most enterprise systems still assume machines are blind to context. So we drown them in process, rules, forms, and explanations. Human effort compensates for machine ignorance.

Robotics is quietly removing that excuse. The next productivity leap won’t come from “more AI features.” It will come from systems — physical and digital — that actually understand the world they operate in.

And when that happens, the question won’t be what machines can do. It will be what humans are still choosing to do.

#AI #Robotics #Transformation

Open article: Neo humanoid maker 1X releases world model to help bots learn what they see | TechCrunch by techcrunch.com

Neo humanoid maker 1X releases world model to help bots learn what they see | TechCrunch

Apparently this is how ChatGPT sees me.
Workshops are supposed to end with insights. Sometimes they end with a venture idea, a pricing model, and a “should we actually build this?” moment.
Strategy without consequence is just theatre.

The interesting work starts when ideas refuse to stay on slides.

We keep talking about AI as if the endgame were automation and efficiency. That framing is already obsolete. OpenAI investing in Merge Labs is not about hardware, and it’s not about accessibility. It’s about collapsing the distance between human intent and machine response. When that gap disappears, AI stops being a tool you use and becomes a system that operates upstream of your behaviour.

Every major platform shift has moved closer to the human core. Social lived in feeds. Mobile lived in pockets. AI wants to live before action itself — in the moment where intent forms. If that succeeds, the advantage won’t be marginal or temporary. It will be structural, because shaping behaviour is easier when you help shape the question before it is consciously articulated.

This is where most corporate AI conversations fall apart. They are still framed around adoption, productivity, and use cases, while the real issue is power. A system that responds to unspoken intent doesn’t just optimise experience; it redefines agency. Design stops being about usability and starts being about mental sovereignty.

The uncomfortable part is not whether this will work. It’s that we are building toward it without a serious conversation about responsibility. Power is moving closer to the brain, not the dashboard. And history is very clear on this point: when capability outpaces governance, we don’t get progress — we get consequences.

The question isn’t “is this exciting?” The question is who will be accountable when AI stops waiting for us to speak.

https://lnkd.in/esUZNvQx

#AI #Transformation #Strategy

Open article: OpenAI invests in Sam Altman’s brain computer interface startup Merge Labs | TechCrunch by techcrunch.com

OpenAI invests in Sam Altman’s brain computer interface startup Merge Labs | TechCrunch

Everyone says Stack Overflow is dying because traffic collapsed. That’s lazy analysis. What actually died is the interface: humans asking humans questions in public threads. AI made that interaction obsolete overnight. What didn’t die is the asset: verified, high-signal, hard-earned technical truth.

Traffic was never the business. Traffic was just the old proof of relevance. In an AI-native world, relevance isn’t measured in visits. It’s measured in how often machines rely on you to not hallucinate. Stack Overflow didn’t lose users. It changed who the user is and how they use it.

From developers typing questions → to AI systems consuming ground truth.
The uncomfortable takeaway for every content, SaaS, and platform business:
👉 If your value depends on being visited, you’re exposed.
 👉 If your value is truth, evidence, or judgment, you just became infrastructure.

AI doesn’t kill knowledge businesses. It kills vanity metrics. The winners won’t chase attention. They’ll become impossible to replace.

https://lnkd.in/ebK9jti2

#AI #Transformation #Business #Strategy

Open article: Stack Overflow’s forum is dead thanks to AI, but the company’s still kicking... thanks to AI by sherwood.news

Stack Overflow’s forum is dead thanks to AI, but the company’s still kicking... thanks to AI

This Meta deal isn’t just about AI. It’s about narrative power. Meta acquiring Manus is framed in Washington as a strategic win. In Beijing, it’s read as a warning sign. Same deal. Two interpretations. Neither is primarily about the product.

What’s actually at play: large tech acquisitions have become geopolitical signals. They communicate who controls talent, who sets rules, and who is “winning” long before any value is realized.

That’s why this deal triggers scrutiny. Not because Manus is uniquely risky, but because the story it tells is uncomfortable: talent exits, sovereignty erosion, asymmetric power.

If your tech strategy in 2026 ignores geopolitics, it’s naïve.

https://lnkd.in/eC2a2kjp

#AI #Politics #Global #Technology #Narrative

Open article: Meta's Manus news is getting different receptions in Washington and Beijing | TechCrunch by techcrunch.com

Meta's Manus news is getting different receptions in Washington and Beijing | TechCrunch

Everyone looks at China’s robot training centers and says: “That’s just a transition phase.” True. But also dangerously comforting. Because transition phases lock in mental models.

What we’re calling “automation” right now is, in reality, human labor reorganized around machines. Rows of people correcting robots, labeling edge cases, feeding learning loops. Not replacing work — subordinating it.

Yes, this phase will pass. Machines will need fewer humans over time. But the logic we establish now tends to persist. The real learning isn’t about robotics. It’s this: technology trajectories don’t just emerge — they are designed, normalized, and justified early.

If we accept that humans are merely temporary training data until they’re no longer needed, we shouldn’t be surprised by where this ends. The strategic question leaders should ask isn’t “How fast will this phase be over?” It’s “What human role are we defining as acceptable while we’re in it?”

Because transition phases don’t disappear. They harden into precedent.

https://lnkd.in/eXqgYAcK

#AI #Transformation #Robotics #Change

Open article: In Chinese data factories, workers teach humanoid robots boring tasks by restofworld.org

A robot assists a man as he folds a shirt, surrounded by other robots and people in a modern workspace.

In Chinese data factories, workers teach humanoid robots boring tasks

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