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

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.

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 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 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 innov8.singtel.com.