A running joke in Singapore’s startup circles holds that a founder’s net worth exists only in two places: the cap table and the LinkedIn bio. For most of Southeast Asia’s entrepreneurs, the joke still lands. IPO windows open and slam shut, trade sales are thin on the ground, and secondary sales have become the region’s liquidity lifeline while exits stay scarce.
For the minority who have converted paper into cash, a new HSBC study offers a glimpse of what comes next. It is less Lamborghini, more bullion vault.
The HSBC Global Entrepreneurial Wealth Report 2026, based on an Ipsos survey of more than 3,000 business owners carried out in April and May, argues that wealthy founders now run a “barbell” strategy. They keep personal money dull and defensive, and take their risks either through their own companies or through concentrated bets on deeptech.
Also Read: Why the 30-year wealth playbook is breaking down
A health warning first. This is a private bank surveying people rich enough to be its clients (earlier editions set the bar at US$2 million in investable assets), and its conclusions end, unsurprisingly, with a case for human wealth advisers. Read it as a portrait of the top sliver, not of the Series A founder in Jakarta paying herself a below-market salary.
Risk at work, safety at home
The report’s most useful insight is that founders split their appetite for risk. Kanas Chan, head of North Asia and Hong Kong at HSBC Private Bank, says entrepreneurs “prefer taking their risks through their operating companies,” where returns are highest and they have levers to pull if things go wrong. A collapsing stock portfolio offers no such levers.
So personal wealth gets the opposite treatment. The respondents’ top investment principles are protecting against capital losses, guarding against inflation and keeping cash within easy reach. Liquidity does double duty: it cushions personal shocks and keeps dry powder ready to inject into their own business, or to pick up distressed assets when the venture cycle turns.
Southeast Asian founders who lived through the 2022 to 2024 funding winter will recognise the logic. Those with cash could bridge their own companies. Those without it took down rounds or worse.
The gold standard, again
Gold is now the most widely held asset among the entrepreneurs surveyed, at 43 per cent, and the one most targeted for accumulation, with 61 per cent planning to buy more over the next 12 months. The appetite is sharpest among Gen Z founders (67 per cent) and owners of the very largest businesses (74 per cent). Real estate funds come second on the shopping list, at 55 per cent.
Also Read: Deeptech and a fracturing world: Why Southeast Asia needs a new playbook
HSBC’s Georgios Leontaris frames gold as an active buffer against currency depreciation and geopolitical friction rather than a static store of value. Fair enough, but timing matters. The metal hit US$4,780 an ounce in April, and buying a hedge after a record rally is not the same as owning one before it. There have also been stretches this year when gold, stocks and crypto fell together, exactly when a hedge is supposed to zig.
Private markets crowd out public stocks
On the risky end of the barbell, private markets are closing in on listed equities. Some 28 per cent of respondents own private equity funds and 27 per cent own venture capital funds, against 35 per cent holding public stocks. Half plan to raise PE allocations and 48 per cent plan to add VC exposure.
Younger founders are the most aggressive. Sixty per cent of Gen Z entrepreneurs plan to increase direct investments in private companies, compared with 44 per cent of Gen X. Purvi Amin, head of UHNW UK Solutions at HSBC Private Bank, notes that family offices “are often working together to share the load” through co-investments.
Amin’s remit is the UK, but the pattern matters most here. Singapore’s family office boom, fuelled by tax incentive schemes, has created a pool of capital that could plug gaps left by retreating VCs, particularly for founders who know their deeptech company does not have one capital problem. Whether syndicates of wealthy amateurs can match the discipline of the best angel investors filtering founders in 2026 is an open question.
Where the deeptech money goes
Artificial intelligence is the near-universal holding, owned by 66 per cent of respondents, followed by robotics (35 per cent), fintech (31 per cent), semiconductors (27 per cent) and quantum computing (25 per cent). Owners of the biggest businesses overweight robotics at 55 per cent, a nod to industrial automation.
Two quibbles. When two-thirds of a group owns the same theme, that is consensus, not conviction, and the investors writing SEA’s biggest AI cheques are already crowding the trade. And fintech sits awkwardly in a deep tech list. Quantum is the more interesting signal, especially after Horizon Quantum’s SPAC listing hinted at a selective return of deeptech deals.
Trust the machine, up to a point
Founders may automate their companies aggressively, but they are wary of automating their fortunes. While 84 per cent trust AI to support investment management through portfolio analytics, risk monitoring and scenario testing, they reject fully robotic advice. HSBC’s Charlie Hoffman says investors still want a professional who understands “the wider context and their life circumstances.”
Also Read: Wealth management emerges bright spot in Southeast Asia financial services M&A
A bank arguing that bankers remain essential deserves a raised eyebrow. Still, the finding squares with what Singapore’s industry is seeing: AI is reshaping wealth management but not replacing the adviser, especially on tax structuring, multi-country residency and succession.
What it means for Southeast Asia
The report’s real lesson for the region’s founders is simple: never become a forced seller of your own equity in a downturn. A defensive personal reserve is what makes patience possible.
The bigger story may be on the other side of the barbell. If even a fraction of the region’s newly liquid founders pool their money into structured syndicates, they could become a meaningful source of early-stage capital for robotics, chips and climate infrastructure at a time when institutional VCs remain cautious. The risk is that the money follows the herd into AI rather than the harder, slower bets the region needs.
The post Founders are buying gold, not Lamborghinis, after the exit appeared first on e27.
A running joke in Singapore’s startup circles holds that a founder’s net worth exists only in two places: the cap table and the LinkedIn bio. For most of Southeast Asia’s entrepreneurs, the joke still lands. IPO windows open and slam shut, trade sales are thin on the ground, and secondary sales have become the region’s liquidity lifeline while exits stay scarce.
For the minority who have converted paper into cash, a new HSBC study offers a glimpse of what comes next. It is less Lamborghini, more bullion vault.
The HSBC Global Entrepreneurial Wealth Report 2026, based on an Ipsos survey of more than 3,000 business owners carried out in April and May, argues that wealthy founders now run a “barbell” strategy. They keep personal money dull and defensive, and take their risks either through their own companies or through concentrated bets on deeptech.
Also Read: Why the 30-year wealth playbook is breaking down
A health warning first. This is a private bank surveying people rich enough to be its clients (earlier editions set the bar at US$2 million in investable assets), and its conclusions end, unsurprisingly, with a case for human wealth advisers. Read it as a portrait of the top sliver, not of the Series A founder in Jakarta paying herself a below-market salary.
Risk at work, safety at home
The report’s most useful insight is that founders split their appetite for risk. Kanas Chan, head of North Asia and Hong Kong at HSBC Private Bank, says entrepreneurs “prefer taking their risks through their operating companies,” where returns are highest and they have levers to pull if things go wrong. A collapsing stock portfolio offers no such levers.
So personal wealth gets the opposite treatment. The respondents’ top investment principles are protecting against capital losses, guarding against inflation and keeping cash within easy reach. Liquidity does double duty: it cushions personal shocks and keeps dry powder ready to inject into their own business, or to pick up distressed assets when the venture cycle turns.
Southeast Asian founders who lived through the 2022 to 2024 funding winter will recognise the logic. Those with cash could bridge their own companies. Those without it took down rounds or worse.
The gold standard, again
Gold is now the most widely held asset among the entrepreneurs surveyed, at 43 per cent, and the one most targeted for accumulation, with 61 per cent planning to buy more over the next 12 months. The appetite is sharpest among Gen Z founders (67 per cent) and owners of the very largest businesses (74 per cent). Real estate funds come second on the shopping list, at 55 per cent.
Also Read: Deeptech and a fracturing world: Why Southeast Asia needs a new playbook
HSBC’s Georgios Leontaris frames gold as an active buffer against currency depreciation and geopolitical friction rather than a static store of value. Fair enough, but timing matters. The metal hit US$4,780 an ounce in April, and buying a hedge after a record rally is not the same as owning one before it. There have also been stretches this year when gold, stocks and crypto fell together, exactly when a hedge is supposed to zig.
Private markets crowd out public stocks
On the risky end of the barbell, private markets are closing in on listed equities. Some 28 per cent of respondents own private equity funds and 27 per cent own venture capital funds, against 35 per cent holding public stocks. Half plan to raise PE allocations and 48 per cent plan to add VC exposure.
Younger founders are the most aggressive. Sixty per cent of Gen Z entrepreneurs plan to increase direct investments in private companies, compared with 44 per cent of Gen X. Purvi Amin, head of UHNW UK Solutions at HSBC Private Bank, notes that family offices “are often working together to share the load” through co-investments.
Amin’s remit is the UK, but the pattern matters most here. Singapore’s family office boom, fuelled by tax incentive schemes, has created a pool of capital that could plug gaps left by retreating VCs, particularly for founders who know their deeptech company does not have one capital problem. Whether syndicates of wealthy amateurs can match the discipline of the best angel investors filtering founders in 2026 is an open question.
Where the deeptech money goes
Artificial intelligence is the near-universal holding, owned by 66 per cent of respondents, followed by robotics (35 per cent), fintech (31 per cent), semiconductors (27 per cent) and quantum computing (25 per cent). Owners of the biggest businesses overweight robotics at 55 per cent, a nod to industrial automation.
Two quibbles. When two-thirds of a group owns the same theme, that is consensus, not conviction, and the investors writing SEA’s biggest AI cheques are already crowding the trade. And fintech sits awkwardly in a deep tech list. Quantum is the more interesting signal, especially after Horizon Quantum’s SPAC listing hinted at a selective return of deeptech deals.
Trust the machine, up to a point
Founders may automate their companies aggressively, but they are wary of automating their fortunes. While 84 per cent trust AI to support investment management through portfolio analytics, risk monitoring and scenario testing, they reject fully robotic advice. HSBC’s Charlie Hoffman says investors still want a professional who understands “the wider context and their life circumstances.”
Also Read: Wealth management emerges bright spot in Southeast Asia financial services M&A
A bank arguing that bankers remain essential deserves a raised eyebrow. Still, the finding squares with what Singapore’s industry is seeing: AI is reshaping wealth management but not replacing the adviser, especially on tax structuring, multi-country residency and succession.
What it means for Southeast Asia
The report’s real lesson for the region’s founders is simple: never become a forced seller of your own equity in a downturn. A defensive personal reserve is what makes patience possible.
The bigger story may be on the other side of the barbell. If even a fraction of the region’s newly liquid founders pool their money into structured syndicates, they could become a meaningful source of early-stage capital for robotics, chips and climate infrastructure at a time when institutional VCs remain cautious. The risk is that the money follows the herd into AI rather than the harder, slower bets the region needs.
The post Founders are buying gold, not Lamborghinis, after the exit appeared first on e27.
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