Cocoon Capital

03/11/2026

In this week’s , Michael Blakey looks at the side of the future of work few people talk about: if AI does all the junior work, where does today's generation get its experience?

Share your thoughts.

30/10/2026

"If nobody is willing to hire young people without experience, how on earth will my kids ever get any?"

That’s the question Michael Blakey couldn’t shake after a catch-up with Anchanto co-founder Vaibhav Dabhade, the first founder he backed in Singapore 13 years ago.

In his latest , Michael Blakey reflects on this tension. Read the full article: https://lnkd.in/p/eJTwhahh

28/10/2026

Last year’s Gold winner is coming back to in-cosmetics Asia! 🏆 Catch ArrowBiome on 3–5 November 2026 at BITEC, Bangkok. 🇹🇭

ArcherZyme® won Gold for Best Active Ingredient in the Innovation Zone at last year’s in-cosmetics Asia Awards. This year, the team brings both of its precision microbiome actives to Bangkok:

🔹 ArcherZyme®: targeted underarm odour control that tackles odour-causing bacteria while keeping the wider skin microbiome intact
🔹 SmartArrow®: precision care for acne-prone skin that targets C. acnes biofilms while keeping beneficial bacteria intact

Meet the ArrowBiome team to see how these actives could fit your formulations.

27/10/2026

Great founders know they can’t build a company alone. They know how to bring in the right people, give them room to grow and learn from the mistakes along the way.

Michael Blakey joined SuperReturn Asia's “Sourcing talent: Finding the Right Leader For Your Portfolio Companies” to discuss what sets great founders apart and what it takes to build the next generation of leaders in Southeast Asia.

As Michael put it, “90% of our investment decision is always about the people.”

Here are three takeaways from Michael’s perspective:
1. The best founders know how to attract and keep great people.
Founders often say there isn’t enough talent in their city, whether that’s Singapore, London or New York. Michael sees it differently. Great founders build teams that believe in what they’re trying to achieve and are willing to stick around when things get tough. That’s one reason he pays close attention to a founder’s first hires.

2. Give your team room to lead, and know when to make tough calls.
Founders who are too focused on their title can be difficult to back. The best ones trust their teams to make decisions, take risks and learn along the way. But that also means knowing when to act quickly. In a team of 45 with limited runway, one bad hire can have serious consequences. Owning mistakes early matters.

3. Southeast Asia’s startup ecosystem needs to talk more openly about failure.
Success stories are easy to share. What founders can learn from things that went wrong is often left out. Michael believes being more open about failure, alongside investors taking a more active role in helping founders grow into CEOs, can help the region’s ecosystem mature.

Building something bold in Southeast Asia? We’d love to hear from you. Apply through our website: https://cocooncap.com

Photo credit: Davian Sim, LinkedIn

27/10/2026

Introducing AutoPath: A New Era of Physical AI in Robotics

Augmentus Robotics introduces AutoPath, a new physical AI solution that turns operator instructions into ready-to-run robot programs without requiring specialist programming skills.

Operators can describe a task in plain language or mark the area to process directly on the part. AutoPath then generates the robot program in minutes, then validates it in simulation for reachability, collisions, and joint limits. Meanwhile, production can continue as the next part is prepared.

The built-in process skills support surface finishing, thermal spray and coating, blasting, and laser cladding.

From hours of programming to minutes. That's the power of making industrial robotics more accessible, adaptable, and efficient.

Discover AutoPath at https://www.augmentus.tech/discover/blogs/introducing-autopath/

27/10/2026

Qashier has launched QashierGM, an AI general manager built for Southeast Asia’s small businesses. 🚀

QashierGM runs on each merchant’s own sales, payouts and menu data. Owners ask questions in plain language, like why a payout came in lower than the day’s sales or which outlet is lagging this week. It also handles routine work like price updates and sold-out items, and it only makes a change after the owner confirms it. With Crew, Qashier’s new team chat, any staff member can tag to get work done, and it only acts within that person’s role.

QashierGM is free for all Singapore merchants. It's coming to Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines in November.

Tune in. More about QashierGM here: https://qashier.com/sg/newsroom/1305/qashier-launches-qashiergm-ai-general-manager

26/10/2026

We named ourselves after the wrong insect. It turned out to be exactly just right.

10 years ago, two very different angel investors decided to build a fund together. Our Managing Partner, Michael Blakey, was skeptical of VCs, but Will Klippgen 威廉, our Founder Emeritus, believed they could do better. They still disagree on plenty of things, but they share a few core beliefs: founders come first, hard lessons are worth sharing, and spray-and-pray investing is never the answer. That’s how Cocoon Capital came to be; those same beliefs continue to shape how we invest, work with founders, and build relationships that go beyond the cheque.

ACRA rejected the name New Asian Ventures (NAV). He came up with Cocoon while reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar as a bedtime story. It made him think about nurturing founders and helping them grow. Will liked the idea, and that was that. The companies we back are mostly enterprise and deep tech businesses that solve unsexy problems that others might overlook, but actually matter.

If you’re building something important but unglamorous and want an investor who comes in early and stays through the hard parts, pitch to us.

This is only part of the story. In his full article, Michael shares how he and Will first met, the bet that got our first fund started, how Cocoon has changed over three funds, who’s leading us into the next decade, and why he’s more excited about Southeast Asia than ever. 👉 https://lnkd.in/g9K4Vwhq

19/10/2026

What F1 Can Teach Us About Venture Capital

Speed gets you noticed. Strategy gets you to the podium. 🏎️

F1 isn’t just about speed. It’s strategy, engineering and teamwork, which are the same things that turn a startup into a winner. We couldn’t stop thinking about how much F1 has in common with building a startup. Swipe to see what we meant.

Building something that could change the game? We back early-stage enterprise and deep tech founders with capital and hands-on support: https://cocooncap.com

15/10/2026

ArrowBiome’s ArcherZyme® study is now in JEADV Clinical Practice.

🔬 We often think of skincare in terms of the ingredients we put on our skin. But what if the next wave of innovation is just as much about the bacteria we choose to target?

Our portfolio company, ArrowBiome, is working on exactly that with ArcherZyme®.

Its technology uses a bacteriophage-derived enzyme called a lysin to target Staphylococcus hominis, a bacterium closely associated with underarm odour. The idea is to address the source of the odour without disrupting the wider skin microbiome.

The clinical research published in JEADV Clinical Practice, the open-access journal of the EADV - European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology, reported an average 60.7% reduction in odour scores two hours after a single application, with a 42.6% reduction still observed at 24 hours. The randomised trial involved 27 people, with no skin reactions observed.

Congratulations to Boon Chong Goh, Dr. Bert Grobben, and the entire ArrowBiome team on this work. 👏

More about ArrowBiome here: https://www.arrowbiome.com/

Our ArcherZyme® clinical study is now peer-reviewed and published in JEADV Clinical Practice. In a controlled, split-underarm trial with 27 participants, a single supervised application reduced sniffer-panel odour scores by a mean 60.7% at two hours and 42.6% at 24 hours, while odour on untreated c...

14/10/2026

A new website for a new chapter: Bioactivx has relaunched the Bioactiv® Matrix website as it moves from R&D to commercialisation.

Built for clinicians and partners, it brings together the science, clinical cases, and practical details behind Bioactiv® Matrix. Within a year of our seed investment, Bioactivx went from awaiting regulatory approval to making an HSA-approved product in Singapore. The new site is built for what comes next: it's clinical adoption.

Get to know more about Bioactivx's Bioactiv® Matrix at https://www.bioactivmatrix.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bioactivx_bioactivx-synthetic-skin-substitutes-activity-7513753834280759296-svof?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAABfIPZcBR4oxDCyDwd3x0-WekO10OrSRtLU

A new website. A clearer focus on Bioactiv® Matrix. We’re pleased to announce the relaunch of www.BioactivMatrix.com. As Bioactivx moves into commercialisation, our website has evolved from introducing our company and technology to helping clinicians and partners better understand our flagship pr...