A top VC in Thailand stole millions of dollars through a crypto investment scam
Kampanat Vimolnoht, formerly with Thailand’s second largest bank, duped dozens of investors and fled without trace
A seasoned venture capital executive in Thailand has been outed for taking millions of dollars in what turned out to be a cryptocurrency investment scam.
Kampanat Vimolnoht, known as Jom, is a well-known VC in Thailand who helmed Kasikorn Bank’s $100 million Web3 fund. But a report from Scamurai shed light on his dark side. He collected millions of dollars from industry colleagues, friends and others who wanted to invest in promising crypto deals, only to disappear last November with no returns.
Scamurai said more than two dozen individuals were convinced into giving Jom money, some sending multiple six-figure US dollar amounts. All of which has disappeared without trace. Worse still, the individuals who invested through Jom found that, in many cases, he hadn’t done the deals he’d claimed, according to founders of the projects he’d claimed he’d invested in.
The situation seems unlikely given that Jom was one of Thailand’s highest-profile Web3 VCs. He had worked for multiple funds before but was the front man for Web3 at Kasikorn Bank, Thailand’s second-largest bank with $122.3 billion in assets under management.
I interacted with Jom in recent years, first as a journalist and then briefly when I worked at Crypto.com Capital. We didn’t do any deals together, but when he said that had raised his own fund, he was quite keen to take even a small cheque. It seemed like a conflict of interest to raise a personal investment fund whilst being employed to run a $100 million fund for Kasikorn, but not entirely unbelievable given how the Web3 industry has been in the past.
Web3 doesn’t have a great reputation within the broader technology industry and instances like this are usually why. Most investment funds are paperwork heavy, but, in crypto, ‘syndicated’ investments are often made with limited, or even no, agreements in place. You just need a wallet. That allows scammers like Jom to thrive, even though it feels inevitable that they’ll be found out at some point.
It isn’t clear why he took these actions or where he is right now, which will make it tough for those he took money from to come to terms with what happened and get their money back. That’s rough, and I hope he is found and brought to justice.
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Jon
Leadership change hint at new focus for Alibaba’s Qwen
Alibaba has turned its business around thanks to a focus on AI that’s hinged on the development of its Qwen LLM and consumer services. Now that business appears in flux following a number of key personnel changes.
Qwen’s head, Lin Junyang, left his role last week. He was joined by post-training head Yu Bowen, with research scientist Hui Binyuan stepping down back in January. Google DeepMind scientist Zhou Hao has been recruited as head of post-training research, and Alibaba has made broader changes.
CEO Eddie Wu will lead a newly-formed task force to accelerate AI model development.
It isn’t clear why these changes are being made, but the excellent Recode China has some theories, which include.
The reshuffle makes Qwen’s operations less like a startup and more like an AI division inside a corporation
Zhou Hao arrival, as a research from Silicon Valley, is said to have caused unease among the Qwen leadership
There was overlap between Qwen and Alibaba’s Tongyi Lab
Qwen lost its lead over Chinese rivals, with Minimax, Moonshot AI and Zhipu all challenging it on benchmarks
It’s too soon to know how this all shakes out. But, as Recode China points out, it may mean Alibaba prioritises its close source AI efforts over the open source ones because, ultimately, they drive revenue and that is business.
Indonesia and India follow Australia with kids social media ban
Australia banned social media usage for children under 16 last year. Malaysia was among the countries to follow with plans of its own, and now other governments across Asia are following suit.
Indonesia, never a country to be slow in dishing out internet bans, plans to prevent under-16s from opening accounts on ‘high risk’ digital platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram from the end of this month. That’s according to the country’s communication and digital affairs minister.
It isn’t clear how that will work and, ultimately, Indonesia wants tech platforms themselves to introduce the limitations. None of the tech companies contacted by Reuters responded.
Now India is also stepping up, not nationally but instead with the state of Karnataka, which encompasses tech hub Bengaluru, moving first.
“With the objective of preventing adverse effects of increasing mobile usage on children, usage of social media will be banned for children under the age of 16,” said Karnataka’s chief minister.
Like Indonesia, the exact details here are not clear and we’ll have to wait for more details.
China
US investors are asking Asian fund managers to create China-free investment vehicles as Washington’s curbs on funding Chinese technology threatens heavy penalties link
US officials are considering capping Chinese companies to 75,000 Nvidia H200 chips each, less than half of what Alibaba and ByteDance wanted link
Nvidia halted production of chips designed for the Chinese market, shifting TSMC manufacturing capacity from H200 chips to next-generation Vera Rubin hardware link
Alibaba, ByteDance and Tencent entered talks to buy more memory chips from domestic suppliers as a global shortage tightened supply link
The US Commerce Department proposed rules requiring countries whose companies sought large volumes of Nvidia and AMD chips to commit to investing in the United States link
MiniMax reported 159% revenue growth to $79M in its first results since listing in Hong Kong, though losses widened to $1.87B amid heavier R&D spending link
Huawei debuted its Atlas 950 SuperPoD and TaiShan 950 computing clusters to challenge Nvidia in international markets link
The White House is weighing whether to let Tencent retain stakes in Epic Games, Riot Games and Supercell ahead of Trump’s planned April meeting with Chinese premier Xi Jinping link
Meanwhile, Tencent-owned Supercell said it was cooperating with a US security probe and that its shareholder agreement guaranteed operational independence from its Chinese parent—not a big surprise as Supercell has usually done as it pleases without interference link
China has far less public alarm over AI than the West, with policymakers and the public largely expressing optimism about the technology link
However, China’s tech stocks faced a $600B rout as AI development costs threatened to deepen losses link
China’s new five-year policy blueprint calls for aggressive AI adoption across the economy as the country aims to secure leadership in quantum computing and humanoid robots link
As AI threatens jobs and deflation strained growth, Xi Jinping faces pressure to expand China’s social safety net link
Chinese consumers and developers are rushing to install Openclaw, the platform that lets anyone build an AI agent, for everything from stock picking and report writing to slide decks, emails and coding link
Centurium Capital, Luckin Coffee’s controlling shareholder, agreed to buy Blue Bottle Coffee from Nestlé for under $400M, a steep discount to the $700M deal that was reportedly first sought link
Six US senators asked Intel for details on its ties with ACM Research, whose subsidiaries remained on a Commerce Department blacklist link
China’s venture capital industry is gaining momentum after years of decline, driven largely by increased government funding link
JD.com reported its first quarterly loss in nearly four years following a costly foray into food delivery link
US investigators believe China-linked hackers breached an internal FBI computer network containing information on some domestic surveillance orders. Link
Zero-day exploitation targeting enterprise tech products reached an all-time high last year, with China-linked cyber-espionage groups remaining the most prolific state-backed users, according to Google link
China’s smartphone market is seeing one of its biggest and widest price hikes ever, affecting almost all brands and product categories, as a deepening memory chip shortage pushes up costs by as much as 20% link
NetEase will stop funding the studio led by Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi as part of a broader pullback in game development link
India
PhonePe is reportedly targeting a $9B-$10.5B valuation in its upcoming IPO, a potential drop from the $12B valuation it secured in 2023 link
Meanwhile, delays in formalising new listing rules risked pushing back the planned IPO of Jio Platforms, Mukesh Ambani’s digital arm link
Quick commerce solutions platform Inamo raised $8M led by Prime Venture link
Google has partnered with Bharti Airtel to embed carrier-level filtering into RCS, the messaging standard, to improve efforts to curb fraud and spam in India link
Home services startup Pronto raised $25M in a round led by Epiq Capital at a post-money valuation of $100M link
An espionage campaign targeted government agencies and critical infrastructure operators in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, has been attributed to an India-nexus threat actor called SloppyLemming link
Ownly, a zero commission food delivery app from Rapido, fully launched its service across Bengaluru following a 7 month trial, Flipkart is reportedly planning to follow suit and launch a trial in the city soon link
Rural commerce startup Rozana raised $30M led by existing investors Bertelsmann India Investments and Fireside Ventures, reaching a valuation near $200M link
India’s security agencies have asked private startups to develop ‘bodyguard satellites’ to protect space assets link
Southeast Asia
Singapore launched a national programme to strengthen AI capabilities of 100,000 workers and 10,000 businesses over three years, including lawyers, accountants and prisoners link
MyFirst, Singapore’s kid-focused tech brand, raised over $8M in a Series A link
Sea shares plunged the most since 2023 after profit fell short of estimates link
Singapore and Taiwan identified more than $700M in assets and illicit funds linked to alleged scam syndicate Prince Holding Group and its founder Chen Zhi link
Vietnam will impose mandatory AI labelling under a new law link
Vietnam’s police-owned telecom Mobifone entered talks with Chinese tech firms over contracts to build parts of its 5G network despite US security warnings link
South Korea
Mass production at Samsung’s Taylor plant in Texas has been pushed back to next year link
South Korea plans to cap major shareholder stakes in cryptocurrency exchanges at 20%, forcing platforms like Upbit and Bithumb to restructure their ownership link
Japan
SoftBank’s PayPay is seeking a valuation of up to $13.4B in a US IPO, which is moving ahead despite market volatility link
SoftBank is looking for a loan of as much as $40B to help finance its investment in OpenAI link
Rest of Asia
Visa and Stripe’s Bridge expanded their stablecoin partnership to launch stablecoin-backed cards in 100 countries across Europe, Asia and Africa link
Pakistan’s parliament passed the Virtual Assets Act, 2026, converting the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA) into a permanent federal body with the power to license and supervise crypto service providers. link
Kazakhstan’s central bank has formed a portfolio of up to $350M from gold and foreign exchange reserves for investment in cryptocurrency assets link