Top 10 AI Startups to Watch in Brunei Darussalam in 2026

Table of Contents

• Introduction: From Gadong Night Market to Brunei’s AI Market
• EVYD Tech
• Payung Aman
• Rimbun Labs
• Agrome IQ
• Memori
• Mixplate.ai
• roiquant
• Qualoo
• Think Axis
• Pixelated Enterprise
• Conclusion: Use This List as Your Starter Plate
• Frequently Asked Questions

EVYD Tech

Brunei’s health-data engine room

Across Brunei and ASEAN, health systems are grappling with rising chronic disease, an ageing population, and the constant risk of infectious-disease flare-ups. Records sit in silos, making it hard for policymakers to see problems early. EVYD Tech steps in here as an AI-based population health management platform that ingests national-scale data and gives the Ministry of Health predictive visibility into disease trends, capacity needs, and at-risk groups.

EVYD’s tools underpin Brunei’s own digital-health push, moving the country from reactive reporting to forward-looking analytics. In regional startup trackers, EVYD is consistently cited among the most important firms in the country’s ecosystem (Tracxn’s top startups in Brunei), reflecting that national footprint.

Why EVYD stands out in regional HealthTech

• Deep system integration: Tight linkage with Brunei’s Ministry of Health gives EVYD access to real-world, longitudinal datasets that most regional health-AI players never see.
• Research firepower: EVYD has committed S$10 million to a joint AI lab with Singapore’s A*STAR, putting it squarely in the “smart money + universities” model that analysts at the Business Times describe as the new centre of gravity for serious AI R&D.
• Unicorn validation: Reaching a unicorn valuation in late 2025 makes EVYD one of very few Brunei-born companies with that status, signalling investor belief that it can scale well beyond our 450,000-person population.

Unlike consumer-facing telemedicine and clinic-booking apps common in Singapore or Jakarta, EVYD operates upstream at the policy and population layer - closer to how national public-health agencies like the UK’s NHS think.

Signals to watch in 2026

For Bruneian data scientists and ML engineers, EVYD is one of the few places to work directly on population-scale models without leaving Bandar Seri Begawan - while still benefiting from Brunei’s no personal income tax and proximity to family.

Key milestones to watch include deeper ASEAN penetration (particularly Indonesia and the Philippines), integrations with insurers and large employers such as BSP and Brunei LNG, and the possibility of either a regional IPO or a major strategic investment round from a global healthcare or cloud provider.

Payung Aman

When scams follow Bruneians into WhatsApp and Instagram

As Bruneians shift banking, shopping, and side hustles onto online banking, WhatsApp business, and Instagram shops, scam attempts have followed: fake investment schemes, parcel-fraud SMS, phishing links, and romance scams now target everyone from government officers to home bakers in Brunei-Muara. MSMEs taking in BND 1,000-5,000 a month often lack IT teams or formal fraud training, so a single mistake in a WhatsApp chat can wipe out weeks of revenue.

BruJaga: an AI shield that speaks like your scammers

Payung Aman Enterprise built BruJaga as an AI-powered chatbot and app that helps users identify and verify potential scams in real time. Instead of generic English-language filters, BruJaga’s models are trained on Malay and Brunei-specific scam patterns pulled from SMS, WhatsApp, and Telegram, making it far more sensitive to the phrases and layouts real victims see. Its listing among Bandar Seri Begawan startup profiles on F6S reflects growing ecosystem recognition.

• Analyses screenshots or forwarded messages for red flags
• Explains why something looks suspicious, in plain Malay or English
• Reinforces digital-literacy tips so users learn to self-detect next time

Policy tailwinds and responsible AI

The launch of the AIM ASEAN initiative for MSME digital safety in January 2026 gave tools like BruJaga a clear policy lane, with frameworks and, in some cases, subsidies encouraging MSMEs to adopt AI safety solutions. That dovetails with Brunei’s own emphasis on responsible AI. At a national forum, UBDSBE’s Dean Dr Wardah Azimah stressed that AI deployment must centre on human values:

“Critical thinking, integrity and accountability must anchor how we design and use AI systems.” - Dr Wardah Azimah, Dean, UBDSBE, quoted in Brunei forum explores responsible use of AI

What to watch next

The logical next step is deep integration: a “verify this message” button inside major banking apps, or checks embedded in DST and Imagine SMS gateways. With banks like BIBD and Baiduri already piloting AI assistants for customer service, Payung Aman is well placed to become the trusted fraud-intelligence layer that quietly protects Bruneians every time they tap “send.”

Rimbun Labs

Turning dense fee tables into real advice

In a typical Bruneian bank branch, a middle-income customer choosing between home-financing, credit cards, or takaful often faces pages of fees, riders, and shariah clauses they barely have time to read. Relationship managers do their best, but true “private-banking-grade” advice is hard to deliver at scale. Rimbun Labs steps into this gap by acting as an “intelligence overlay” for banks and wealth managers, decoding complex products and matching them to specific customer profiles and regulations.

A headless fiduciary engine for Islamic finance

Instead of launching yet another consumer app, Rimbun Labs offers a headless fiduciary engine that plugs directly into existing mobile apps, CRM tools, and branch systems. Under the hood, a recursive math engine parses unstructured documents - fee tables, T&Cs, risk statements - then models cashflows, caps, and shariah filters.

• Supports both conventional and Islamic products across ASEAN jurisdictions
• Surfaces optimised product mixes for defined personas (e.g., fresh grads, T20 professionals)
• Respects local regulatory limits and credit cultures by design

This positioning mirrors how Brunei’s broader software sector is moving from generic IT services to specialised vertical platforms, a trend highlighted in an overview of Brunei’s top software companies.

Where Rimbun fits in Brunei’s AI-finance stack

As local banks ramp up digital offerings and experiment with AI-driven customer engagement, analysts expect the next frontier to be AI-augmented advisory, especially for Islamic and ESG-linked products. Rimbun Labs’ engine gives Bruneian institutions a way to compete with robo-advisors in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore while keeping advice anchored to their own balance sheets and brands.

For AI engineers, this means a chance to work on production-grade financial models from Bandar Seri Begawan, serving markets far larger than Brunei’s. Nucamp’s earlier look at Brunei’s most promising startups already flagged FinTech as a key growth area; Rimbun Labs is one of the clearest AI-native examples of that shift.

Agrome IQ

Drive out toward the veggie plots and padi fields around Brunei-Muara, and you’ll see the quiet pressure our farmers live with: unpredictable rain, pests that don’t care about borders, and import competition from Sabah and Sarawak. Brunei still imports a large share of its food, so Wawasan 2035’s push for food security isn’t just a slogan; it’s a national risk calculation that shows up in every harvest cycle.

Agrome IQ tackles this with an AI-enabled farm-management stack built for our climate and crops. On the ground, IoT sensors monitor soil moisture, nutrient levels, and micro-climate; in the cloud, computer-vision models and predictive analytics flag issues early and recommend actions. Instead of guessing when to irrigate or spray, farmers get data-backed playbooks they can follow season after season.

What makes Agrome IQ distinctive is that it grew out of Brunei’s farming community rather than a distant lab. The team started by solving very practical problems for local growers - when to water, how to spot pest outbreaks, which crop mix works in a given plot - before expanding. Early backing from Cerana Capital signalled that investors see this as an exportable Borneo-wide AgriTech play, not a one-off local project. This fits the pattern of Bruneian startups using our small market as a testbed before scaling, highlighted in coverage of the Brunei Startup Summit’s “post-hype” AI wave.

The momentum isn’t limited to bigger farms. A BizBrunei story showed how a teenager’s AI solution helped Springhill Farm, a sustainable farm, automate customer engagement and reach buyers directly via chatbots - proof that data and AI can lift even micro-producers, not just plantations (AI solution for a sustainable Brunei farm).

For Bruneian AI practitioners, Agrome IQ offers something rare: a chance to work on computer vision, time-series forecasting, and IoT integration while contributing directly to national food security - all from a base in Bandar Seri Begawan.

Memori

Making wills less intimidating for Bruneian families

Across Brunei, many families still avoid formal wills and estate planning, even as savings balances, overseas accounts, and digital assets quietly stack up. Traditional legal services can feel expensive, complex, and culturally uncomfortable, especially when conversations touch on death and inheritance norms. That gap is where Memori has carved out a niche: an AI-guided, cloud platform that lets you plan your legacy from a phone or laptop, at your own pace, in language you actually use at home.

AI-guided flows for wills, digital vaults, and pets

Memori doesn’t just generate documents; it walks users through structured, conversational workflows to:

• Draft wills and end-of-life instructions tuned to local legal and cultural expectations
• Catalogue and secure digital assets in a digital vault (from cloud photos to crypto)
• Handle niche cases like pet legacy planning, which has resonated strongly with younger urban users

Behind the scenes, NLP and generative AI help translate everyday language into formal clauses, reducing the need for legalese. This kind of focused LegalTech aligns with global calls for “AI-for-good” solutions that tackle justice and inclusion challenges, echoed in initiatives like the AI for Good Innovation Factory.

Funding, validation, and enterprise positioning

Memori is backed by 113 Venture and Malaysia’s MaGIC, and has raised roughly BND 155,000 (about USD 115,000) in seed funding. Ecosystem trackers list it among Brunei’s leading enterprise application startups, and reports indicate it already serves thousands of users locally. That scale matters in a country of just over 450,000 people.

Where Memori fits your AI career lens

For AI and ML practitioners, Memori offers a different kind of challenge from health or FinTech: modelling sensitive, high-trust workflows where mistakes have human and religious consequences, not just financial ones. It also shows how a Brunei-born startup can ride broader LegalTech currents discussed in pieces like “Unlock the AI Gold Rush”, yet stay grounded in local inheritance norms and family dynamics.

Mixplate.ai

Social commerce without a marketing team

Scroll through Instagram or TikTok from Bandar Seri Begawan on a Friday night and you’ll see what Brunei’s MSME boom looks like: home bakers in Lambak, modest fashion brands in Kiulap, fitness coaches in Sengkurong, all selling through DMs, Stories, and WhatsApp. These founders know their products, but not everyone has time to learn content calendars, A/B testing, or analytics dashboards on top of day jobs and family commitments.

A “marketing manager in your pocket” built for Brunei

Mixplate.ai steps in as a generative-AI assistant that behaves like a lightweight marketing manager for solo founders and microbusinesses. Instead of forcing Western e-commerce funnels, it is tuned for the realities of regional social commerce:

• Drafts on-brand captions in Malay, Brunei Malay, and English
• Suggests content ideas that match local trends and festive seasons
• Structures posts around WhatsApp orders, Instagram DMs, and simple price lists

Founded by local entrepreneur Azam, Mixplate.ai reflects lived experience of selling in Brunei-Muara’s online markets. Its inclusion among Bandar Seri Begawan startups on platforms like F6S sits alongside other “Digital Heroes” celebrated by national campaigns such as Brunei’s digital-innovation reels, which spotlight MSMEs using tech to grow.

Why this matters for AI careers and MSMEs

For small businesses, the appeal is straightforward: pay a subscription that costs less than a part-time staffer, and get more consistent posting, clearer branding, and basic analytics without leaving Instagram. For AI practitioners, Mixplate.ai is a chance to work on multilingual prompt engineering, tone control, and social-graph insights in a live B2B SaaS product.

Positioned inside a wider AI-for-business wave

Global research, including KPMG’s Q1 AI Pulse on execution and AI agents, notes that companies are shifting from generic experimentation to embedded, task-specific AI assistants. Mixplate.ai is Brunei’s version of that trend for MSMEs: a focused, revenue-linked use of generative AI that can scale from Kampong Ayer cottage industries to regional Instagram brands.

roiquant

Scoring startup health instead of guessing

Every Bruneian founder who has pitched at DARe, BEDB, or a regional accelerator knows the pain: dozens of forms, a glossy deck, and then…silence. On the other side of the table, evaluators are drowning in applications that look similar on paper but hide very different risk and traction profiles. roiquant (ROI Quant) exists to bring discipline to this chaos, using AI to turn scattered startup data into comparable health scores.

Founded by Paul and based in Bandar Seri Begawan, roiquant ingests both numerical and textual signals - monthly revenue, churn, team bios, product descriptions - and applies NLP plus financial analytics through a hybrid rubric system. The output is a structured view of business health, risk, and growth potential that investors and programme managers can sort, filter, and benchmark, instead of relying solely on charisma in a 10-minute pitch.

A B2B engine for VCs, accelerators, and grant agencies

roiquant is deliberately B2B-first. Its primary customers are VCs, accelerators, and government agencies evaluating many companies at once, not just single founders seeking dashboards. That mirrors how global accelerator operators are professionalising selection criteria, as seen in guides like NEKLO’s review of leading startup accelerators, which emphasise data-backed admissions and portfolio monitoring over gut feel.

• Standardises evaluation across sectors, stages, and geographies
• Flags red- and green-flags early (e.g., unhealthy burn, weak customer validation)
• Helps track portfolio health over time, not just at investment

Why this matters in Brunei’s Smart Nation push

Within Brunei, roiquant-style scoring could help DARe, BEDB, and corporate venture arms at BSP, banks, and telcos allocate grants and pilots more objectively, aligning scarce capital with the most resilient AI and digital ventures. For local ML engineers, it’s a chance to work on real-world tabular + text modelling, credit-style risk scoring, and explainability - skills that transfer directly into FinTech and enterprise AI.

Globally, AI and machine learning remain among the most sought-after skills, consistently topping lists of top trending technologies to learn. roiquant sits at the intersection of that demand and Brunei’s diversification agenda: a homegrown SaaS product that makes startup capital flows smarter across ASEAN, without you having to leave Bandar Seri Begawan - or pay personal income tax - to work on it.

Qualoo

Internet “weather reports” for a Smart Nation

Every time a Bruneian taps into online classes, e-government services, or mobile banking, they’re riding on a patchwork of routes across Borneo, Singapore, and beyond. When latency spikes or packets drop, it can cripple everything from Zoom-based lectures at UBD to real-time trading screens in Gadong’s financial district. Yet most telcos and enterprises still see this only in hindsight, through angry support tickets and rough graphs.

Qualoo attacks this blind spot by building a decentralised, AI-driven internet intelligence network. Lightweight software agents continuously probe routes and services; central models then analyse patterns to detect connectivity gaps and anomalies as they emerge. In early 2026, Qualoo reported around 7% month-on-month traffic growth, a healthy signal for a B2B infrastructure tool competing with global players like ThousandEyes.

How Qualoo’s AI layer works

• Distributed probes across regions build a live map of real user experience
• AI models flag abnormal jitter, packet loss, or route changes in near real time
• Insights guide capacity planning, peering decisions, and incident response

This is the kind of AI-powered diagnostics that global observers describe as core to the next wave of smart infrastructure, where machine learning quietly optimises networks and devices in the background, as outlined in Avnet Silica’s overview of embedded AI.

From Bandar Seri Begawan to regional backbones

For Brunei’s own Smart Nation ambitions, Qualoo offers a homegrown way for DST, Imagine, and large enterprises to monitor and tune performance of everything from telehealth to fintech. It also stands out as a rare case where a Bruneian AI company’s natural market is outside Brunei: winning a single major telco in Indonesia, Malaysia, or the Philippines would instantly put our ecosystem on the map as a source of export-grade deep tech.

For AI and data engineers, Qualoo is a chance to work on high-volume time-series modelling, anomaly detection, and MLOps tied directly to network reliability - without leaving Bandar Seri Begawan, and while still benefiting from Brunei’s no personal income tax advantage.

Think Axis

Predictive green tech for Brunei’s heavy hitters

From LNG plants in Lumut to palm-oil estates across Borneo, large operators are under pressure on two fronts: rising input and energy costs, and tougher ESG reporting requirements from lenders and buyers. Many still run on spreadsheets and annual audits, which is risky in a world where a few percentage points of wasted energy or yield can wipe out margins and derail Wawasan 2035 sustainability commitments.

Think Axis positions itself squarely in this gap as a predictive analytics and data-automation partner for industry. Instead of generic dashboards, it builds sector-specific models and tools that help decision-makers see where to act before problems become expensive.

What Think Axis actually builds

• Palm oil optimisation: Predictive models that forecast yields, flag bottlenecks, and improve logistics across estates and mills.
• Energy-use dashboards: Near real-time views of plant and office consumption, highlighting reduction opportunities for ESG and cost-saving programmes.
• Process automation: Data pipelines that pull from existing systems to reduce manual reporting and human error.

This vertical focus aligns with how Brunei’s enterprise-tech scene is evolving. Coverage of local innovation, such as the Darussalam Enterprise Startup Showcase, has stressed the importance of B2B software that plugs directly into national champions and regional supply chains.

Why this matters for AI careers in Brunei

For data scientists and ML engineers, Think Axis offers hands-on work in time-series forecasting, optimisation, and industrial analytics rather than only consumer apps. It also places you inside global trends where AI is increasingly used to drive decarbonisation and efficiency in “hard” sectors, a shift echoed in analyses of AI tech trends businesses must watch.

If Brunei’s big players - BSP, Brunei LNG, and regional palm-oil groups - adopt tools like Think Axis at scale, they not only cut emissions and costs; they also turn Brunei into a reference hub for Green Tech AI across Borneo and wider ASEAN.

Pixelated Enterprise

Gamifying the hard part of upskilling

Ask any HR team in Bandar Seri Begawan and they’ll admit it: most compliance and digital-skills training is boring. PowerPoint slides on cybersecurity, anti-money laundering, or basic AI concepts struggle to hold attention in banks, ministries, and even at UBD or UTB. Yet a recent KPMG aIQ report found that 87% of leaders now prioritise upskilling over hiring, which means Brunei’s workforce needs training that people actually want to complete, not just click through.

Pixelated’s adaptive, AI-driven “serious games”

Pixelated Enterprise tackles this by building AI-driven gamified learning platforms that adapt to each learner. Led by local founder Izzuddin, the team blends game design with machine learning to keep users in a productive “challenge zone,” rather than bored or overwhelmed. Their recognition at the ASEAN-Korea AI Youth Festa is a strong external signal that this isn’t just superficial gamification; it’s respected regional-level work.

• Difficulty adjusts in real time based on user performance and behaviour
• Scenarios mirror real Bruneian contexts (e.g., bank frontlines, public-service counters)
• Engagement metrics feed back into content design for continuous improvement

This mirrors global shifts where gamification is now standard in high-engagement apps, from language learning to fitness; analyses of leading fitness app developers highlight game mechanics as core to user retention, not a cosmetic extra.

From classrooms to compliance floors

Pixelated’s projects already span both public and private sectors, contributing to Brunei’s broader digital-transformation agenda. In schools and universities, their platforms can make AI literacy and financial education feel more like mobile games than exams. In corporates - especially banks, insurance, and oil & gas - they turn mandatory training into simulations where staff actually practice decisions under pressure.

Marketers know from global guidance like Yotpo’s engagement-focused SEM tips that attention is now the real scarce resource. Pixelated Enterprise applies the same insight to upskilling: if Brunei wants an AI-ready workforce under Wawasan 2035, our training has to compete not just with other courses, but with everything else on a learner’s phone.

Conclusion: Use This List as Your Starter Plate

Reading the list like a Gadong menu

Picture yourself again at Gadong night market, that five-dollar note softer in your hand now. You’ve tried a couple of cousin-approved gerai, then wandered off down a side lane to a stall that never made it onto any list but tastes exactly like home. That’s how to treat this Top 10: not as a verdict on Brunei’s entire AI scene, but as one curated plate in a much bigger spread.

Each startup here plays a different role in our Smart Nation story: EVYD Tech at the health-policy layer, BruJaga protecting everyday transactions, Rimbun Labs and Think Axis wiring AI into finance and industry, Agrome IQ and Pixelated Enterprise tying food security and upskilling back to Wawasan 2035. Their common backdrop is uniquely Bruneian: no personal income tax, anchor customers like BSP, Brunei LNG, DST, Imagine and major banks within a short drive of Bandar Seri Begawan, and government programmes that increasingly see AI startups as national assets, not side projects.

From list to personal strategy

Globally, AI has moved from buzzword to execution: from AI app shops in Dubai to industry-specific tools in every major hub. Brunei’s twist is scale and focus: our ecosystem is small enough that you can still know many of the founders personally, and focused enough that health, finance, food, sustainability and human capital map cleanly to national priorities.

Use that to your advantage:

• Corporate leaders: Ask which of these startups can solve a problem faster than building in-house.
• Investors: Look for repeatable models and defensible data, not just polished decks.
• Policymakers: Tune sandboxes, procurement, and incentives so this cohort thrives without blocking the next wave.

And if none of these quite match your appetite? That might be your cue to build the missing gerai yourself. As global developers weigh AI project costs from London to Dubai (web application cost analyses are now dominated by AI features), Brunei offers something rare: a tight, supportive market where a well-seasoned idea can still become the next must-visit stall on everyone’s list.

Frequently Asked Questions