Wearable AI firm Plaud stakes $20m Singapore HQ as APAC base

The city-state will serve as the company's base for 12 markets.

Plaud, a wearable artificial intelligence (AI) interface company, opened its Asia-Pacific headquarters in Singapore, committing at least $20m to the region.

The 15,000 square feet headquarters at Marina Bay Financial Centre houses Plaud's engineering, product, customer success, operations, marketing and business teams.

Singapore will serve as the company's base for 12 markets outside Japan and mainland China, including Australia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

The company’s Singapore headcount grew from 10 to roughly 100 employees in nine months, hitting its original end-of-2026 hiring target three months early.

Company-wide, Plaud has scaled from $1.29m (US$1m) to $129m (US$100m) in annual recurring revenue within two years of its 2023 launch, and now serves more than 2.5 million users globally.

Nathan Xu, CEO and Co-founder of Plaud, said the company chose Singapore for its linguistic diversity, calling it a proving ground for AI that must parse code-switching between English, Mandarin, Malay, Tamil and other languages.

($1=US$1.29)

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