# SMBC Asia Rising Fund and Singtel Innov8 Back fileAI as Enterprise AI Adoption Accelerates Across Asia

- Link: https://www.thailand-business-news.com/pr-news/smbc-asia-rising-fund-and-singtel-innov8-back-fileai-as-enterprise-ai-adoption-accelerates-across-asia
- Published: 2026-08-27T09:00:00+07:00
- Author: PR Newswire

|   |

**Investment supports fileAI’s expansion in Japan and the launch of fileScout, fileAI’s
proprietary unstructured data mapping & harnessing solution. **

SINGAPORE, Aug. 27, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — As artificial intelligence moves from experimentation
into the core workflows of major enterprises, Asia is producing its own generation
of enterprise AI companies built to address the region’s most complex operational
challenges.

 [⌊(from left) Alex Neo, Director (Investments), Singtel Innov8; Christian Schneider, CEO, fileAI; Mayoran Rajendra, Managing Director — AI Transformation Department, SMBC⌉](https://mmx.prnasia.com/media/MS1975905/20260826030601EDT_image_1.jpg?id=OA2913104&p=medium600)
(
from left) Alex Neo, Director (Investments), Singtel Innov8; Christian Schneider,
CEO, fileAI; Mayoran Rajendra, Managing Director — AI Transformation Department,
SMBC

fileAI, the enterprise intelligence company behind fileForge, has today announced
investment from SMBC Asia Rising Fund, the corporate venture capital fund of SMBC,
and Singtel Innov8, the corporate venture capital arm of Singtel Group.

More than a financing milestone, the investment underscores the inevitable advance
of AI into the systems and processes that run large organisations, from finance 
and compliance to operations, procurement, and customer onboarding. It also strengthens
fileAI’s position as a homegrown Asian contender in the emerging global enterprise
AI market.

The capital will support fileAI’s expansion in Japan and deepen its investment in
financial services capabilities as it scales its AI-native platform for enterprises
managing complex, high-volume file and data workflows—while further connecting fileAI
with some of Asia’s most influential corporate ecosystems.

The announcement coincides with the debut of fileScout, fileAI’s AI-native unstructured
data mapping solution, which sharply cuts token costs when wrangling unstructured
enterprise data. Combined with agentified data capture, validation, matching, and
reconciliation, it publishes clean, verified, audit-ready records directly into 
the systems that run modern organisations.

**Building Momentum in Japan and Financial Services**

The investment from SMBC Asia Rising Fund follows fileAI’s June 2026 partnership
with JRE Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm supporting the JR East Group.
That partnership established the foundation for fileAI’s presence in Japan and its
work applying governed AI agents to the digitisation and structuring of legacy contracts
and operational documents.

The new investment extends that momentum, supporting fileAI’s plans to build a local
Japan team across sales, engineering, and customer success, while deepening relationships
with enterprises navigating the transition from AI pilots to AI-powered production
workflows.

With SMBC Asia Rising Fund contributing a deep network across banking and large 
regulated enterprises, the investment reflects growing confidence in fileAI’s ability
to bring governed AI into complex, high-stakes business environments.

In banking and financial services, these applications extend from statement and 
covenant extraction to KYC and onboarding checks, reconciliation, and regulatory
reporting across large, multi-entity organisations.

As AI increasingly becomes embedded within enterprise infrastructure, fileAI is 
building the intelligence layer required to transform fragmented documents and unstructured
data into governed, dependable workflows, designed in Asia for enterprises across
the region and globally.

**Leadership Perspectives**

"AI will become an operating layer for every major enterprise, but that future cannot
be built on fragmented data, unreliable outputs or endlessly expanding computing
costs. Our third-generation processing pipeline and fileScout address that foundation,
enabling organisations to transform their most complex unstructured data into trusted
intelligence and production-grade workflows. Backed by some of Asia’s most influential
corporate ecosystems, fileAI’s ambition is to build a global enterprise AI leader
from Asia and to help the region’s businesses become the most AI-enabled organisations
in the world."
**— Christian Schneider, CEO, fileAI**

"Singtel Innov8 is excited to invest in fileAI as it builds a purpose-built AI platform
to address one of the most persistent challenges in enterprise data. We believe 
there is a significant and growing need to turn complex, unstructured information
into clean, structured data that enterprises can trust and use at scale. We see 
strong potential for fileAI as enterprises increasingly seek reliable data foundations
to support AI adoption and unlock greater value from their data."
**— Boon Ping 
Chua, Managing Director, Singtel Innov8**

"At SMBC Group, we continue to drive digitalization and AI transformation across
the Group to enhance both operational efficiency and customer experience. At the
same time, we see strong demand for solutions that enable enterprises to unlock 
value from vast amounts of unstructured data and documents. We believe fileAI’s 
capabilities in improving data accessibility, operational efficiency, and decision-
making will become increasingly important in the AI era. We look forward to collaborating
with fileAI and leading organisations to explore practical AI use cases and drive
innovation across industries."
**— Mayoran Rajendra, Managing Director – AI Transformation
Department, SMBC**

**About fileAI**

fileAI is the enterprise intelligence company behind fileForge, the leading platform
for complex business process automation. Where most AI falls short in production,
fileForge provides the structure, validation, and traceability that makes agentic
AI reliable by design. It unifies data capture, preparation, governance, and orchestration
into auditable, SOP-driven workflows that transform unstructured and semi-structured
data into trusted, reusable process intelligence.

Trusted by global enterprises including MS&AD, Toshiba, PwC, KPMG, Nippon Paint,
and Keppel, fileAI has processed over 1 billion files across finance, insurance,
supply chain, healthcare, and core business operations — delivering governed automation
and contextual reuse for the world’s most complex workflows.

For more information, visit[ ](https://www.file.ai/)[www.file.ai](https://www.file.ai/).

**About SMBC Asia Rising Fund**

SMBC Asia Rising Fund is a corporate venture capital fund co-established by SMBC,
one of the leading banks in Japan, and Incubate Fund, one of Japan’s leading seed
and early-stage venture capital firms. The fund accelerates business development
and strategic partnerships by investing in high-potential startups across India,
Southeast Asia, and global markets, contributing to sustainable regional growth.

For more information, visit[ ](https://www.smbc-asiarising.vc/)[smbc-asiarising.vc](http://smbc-asiarising.vc/).

**About Singtel Innov8**

Established in 2010, Singtel Innov8 is the corporate venture capital fund of Singtel
Group, a leading connectivity, digital infrastructure and services group based in
Asia, operating next-generation connectivity, digital infrastructure and digital
businesses. Innov8 invests in and partners start-ups with promising innovations 
and possible applications for the Group’s diverse business needs.

Innov8 manages a general purpose evergreen fund of US$250 million and an AI Growth
investment fund of US$250 million which focuses on growth-stage AI companies in 
areas critical to Singtel Group’s future, including customer engagement, network
operations, cyber security, IT automation, horizontal enterprise AI platforms and
vertical-specific AI solutions.

By leveraging Singtel Group’s presence across 20 countries in Asia, Australia and
Africa with a total combined reach of over 839 million mobile customers and partnerships
with local and global stakeholders, Innov8 helps start-ups grow and go beyond their
home markets.

For more information, visit[ ](https://innov8.singtel.com/)[innov8.singtel.com](https://innov8.singtel.com/).

---

  |  This article was produced by Cision PR Newswire, our trusted news partner. The views expressed and the content presented here are solely those of the author and may not fully reflect the opinions of Thailand Business News. |

---

 
**Read the original article :** [SMBC Asia Rising Fund and Singtel Innov8 Back fileAI as Enterprise AI Adoption Accelerates Across Asia ](http://www.prnasia.com/story/archive/5034039_AE34039_0?rand=184833)