Most founders spend their early years chasing product-market fit, and rightly so. But when it’s time to raise, investors look beyond the pitch. A fragmented back office, with messy cap tables, missing filings, unclear IP ownership and unreliable numbers, can delay rounds, lower valuations or even kill deals.

In this session, Christian Corrigan, COO & CFO of BlockOffice, walks through what investors actually check in due diligence across corporate, financial, tax and compliance, and people and IP, along with the most common gaps founders face. Drawing on BlockOffice’s experience with clients, he shares a practical readiness checklist and how BlockOffice built Dome to bring the entire back office onto one platform.

What does the path look like for a new-age, AI-native or deepTech venture born in SEA? Should they look to leverage local grants, government contracts, and navigate their way through the family-owned conglomerates in the region, or are they better off hustling in large, well-capitalized, homogeneous markets like China, Japan, or the US? 

Given the lack of a large revenue pool and customer base, does Singapore or SEA best suited to be the “second office” - the one that founders open after tasting commercial success elsewhere? How are the VCs looking at it from their vantage point? Join us for the fireside chat curated alongside TiE Singapore.

Hard Decisions behind Companies that Last.

Capital. Customers. Control. Growth. Exit.The rules have changed. What must a company get right to keep building in 2027?

The founder playbook is being rewired. Capital comes with harder terms. Enterprise buyers can build, wait or buy. AI can make a product look brilliant - and make it easier to copy. Growth no longer guarantees a path to liquidity.

Rewiring the Founder Playbook brings founders, investors, enterprise leaders and policymakers together for the conversations that usually happen behind closed doors: how to protect equity when financing gets hard; what evidence earns a term sheet; whether a customer will share risk; what makes a moat real; and when an acqui-hire or asset sale is the smartest decision a founder can make.

Across the three days, the Founders Stage will be anchored by flagship Founders Peak talks - the personal stories behind the pivotal decisions - alongside candid, future-facing practitioner conversations on the capital, customer, policy and exit choices that will determine who is still standing in 2027.

These are not retrospective success stories or generic startup panels. Each session asks one question: what must be true in 2027 for this company to earn the right to keep building?