Fitch Says Singapore's Data-Centre Capacity Crunch Is Spilling Into Johor, Singapore Fintech Funding Hits a Decade Low, and OSK Ventures Launches a Venture Debt Fund

Fitch Says Singapore's Data-Centre Capacity Crunch Is Spilling Into Johor

Fitch Ratings said Singapore's provisional award of 200 megawatts of new data-centre capacity "falls well short of capacity sought by competing proposals," with unmet demand expected to redirect toward Johor, Malaysia. Singapore's data-centre occupancy rate stood above 95% in the first half of 2026. Johor, meanwhile, already had 1,110MW of operational IT capacity as of the first half, with a further 602MW under construction and 2,486MW planned — against a colocation vacancy rate of just 0.7%.

Fitch framed the dynamic as one where "infrastructure rather than demand" is now setting the pace of growth across the Singapore-Johor corridor, with power availability, land, and permitting increasingly the binding constraints rather than customer appetite. The agency added that this environment will "favor operators with secured utility access, established relationships and proven capabilities," while noting that "demand fundamentals remain favorable" as cloud adoption, enterprise digitalization, and AI workloads continue to drive expansion.

Singapore Fintech Investment Hits Its Weakest Half in Nearly a Decade, KPMG Finds

Singapore's fintech sector drew US$499 million in investment across 53 deals in the first half of 2026, according to KPMG's Pulse of Fintech H1'2026 report — down sharply from US$1.45 billion across 97 deals in H1 2025, and the most subdued half the country has recorded in close to ten years. Q1 came in at US$88 million across 26 deals, before a US$320 million cross-border payments round lifted Q2 to US$411 million across 27 deals; that single round accounted for nearly two-thirds of the half's total disclosed value.

AI and machine learning led deal activity by count, appearing in 18 of the 53 transactions and accounting for US$365.9 million in disclosed value, split roughly evenly between early- and late-stage rounds. Antony Ruddenklau, KPMG's global head of fintech and innovation and head of payments for Asia Pacific, said the pattern reflects a broader shift in which "investors are being far more selective, consolidating capital behind a small number of scaled, high-conviction platforms" rather than the broader-based funding activity of prior years.

OSK Ventures and Affin Hwang Launch Pothos Fund I, a Venture Debt Fund for Mature Malaysian Startups

OSK Ventures International Berhad and Affin Hwang Investment Bank Berhad launched Pothos Fund I, their first joint venture debt fund, offering a three-year debt-equity hybrid financing structure aimed at revenue-generating Southeast Asian companies with proven business models and predictable cash flows. The fund is pitched at mature, venture-backed companies looking to extend runway and fund regional expansion without further diluting existing shareholders.

OSK Ventures chief executive Amelia Ong said the fund is meant to help "build a more complete funding ecosystem" for companies that have outgrown pure equity rounds but aren't yet ready for conventional bank debt. Affin Hwang Investment Bank chief executive Hanif Ghulam said the partnership combines "complementary strengths and deep market expertise" between OSK Ventures' two decades of tech and enterprise investing and Affin Hwang's capital markets and investor-network access.

Eyes on the Days Ahead

No specific regulatory deadline or scheduled decision falls in the next 24-48 hours, so pivoting slightly further out: Thailand's SEC is accepting public comment on its draft spot Bitcoin and Ether ETF rules through September 20, 2026, the consultation window investors should track for the region's next concrete digital-asset milestone.