From Little Red Dot to Silicon Valley: Singapore start-up by poly students makes it to Y Combinator

PHILADELPHIA – In March 2026, Singaporeans Jamie Yau and Kazel Koh learnt that their start-up, Collar AI, was among the 1 per cent accepted into Y Combinator (YC), one of Silicon Valley’s most sought-after start-up accelerators.

Start-ups from anywhere in the world can apply to YC, often called the Harvard for tech founders, which receives around 10,000 applications every quarter.

Only about 1 per cent are accepted – less than actual Harvard’s 4 per cent.

It was their second attempt, and being accepted has unlocked access to seed capital of US$500,000 (S$641,000), three months of business growth mentorship and – perhaps most importantly – the kind of attention from investors that would normally take years to attract.

“We’ve been told that makes us two of the youngest Singaporeans ever to get in,” said Yau, 22, in an interview from San Francisco where she arrived recently to begin YC’s three-month programme.

“Neither of us look like the founders who usually end up at YC,” she added.

“We both grew up in middle-class families, attended neighbourhood schools, and took the polytechnic diploma route, not the junior college or overseas university route,” she said.

Yau’s father works in the Singapore Navy while Koh’s father has a small construction business.

She graduated from North Vista Secondary before enrolling for a diploma in business administration at the Singapore Polytechnic, where she is currently in her third year. She is also pursuing a degree in integrative studies at the Singapore Management University.

Koh, 21, will begin classes in cognitive science and economics at the University of Michigan in 2026 after completing his diploma in information technology at Ngee Ann Polytechnic. The alumnus of Nan Hua High School received GIC and Public Service Commission engineering undergraduate scholarships and was a SoftBank research scholar.

Their paths crossed in 2022 when both were selected for the National Young Leaders Fellowship. By then, they had launched a start-up each. Yau’s was software for detecting hate speech, which closed after a year because it failed to turn a profit. Koh had a healthtech start-up, which he exited to begin National Service.

Their collaboration in 2025 led to Collar AI, a project built for Singapore’s Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) intended to help with due diligence in procurement contracts.

Within a year, however, the duo pivoted. “We realised that the defence tech wouldn’t scale,” said Yau.

“We could probably sell to other parts of the Singapore military, but we wouldn’t be able to work with, say, the US military or maybe Malaysia’s military. There are certain security concerns to having a Singaporean sell to another country’s military. We decided we had to switch it up,” said Yau.

But the question was: to what?

Koh said they felt a “pull” from the private sector. “When we spoke to people about our AI, they asked if they could try it. That’s when we knew that we had product-market fit.”

The shift to finance felt natural, thanks to Koh’s experience at GIC and SoftBank and Yau’s internship at a venture capital firm.

Collar can do three main things, said Yau, who looks after the firm’s marketing and sales while Koh concentrates on developing technology and fund raising.

It can scout for private investment deals across multiple sources such as PitchBook and Bloomberg. It can also run due diligence checks on large stacks of documents, draft investment memos, create financial models and presentations. And it builds a “company brain” that creates institutional memory, learns from each deal and prevents mistakes.

The platform charges US$1,000 a month after a month’s free use. The duo plan to expand their team to up to six people, to be based in Singapore and San Francisco.

Their prospective clients now include a large global investment company, venture capital funds, private equity companies, family offices and similar institutions that look for, sound out and invest in non‑public companies.

Both see in their success a chance to inspire other young entrepreneurs and to put Singapore on the world map.

When asked how they were able to beat the odds in getting into YC, Koh admitted they had wondered the same thing.

“We asked YC why they chose us and they said it is because of our personalities and backgrounds.

“Jamie and I are both ex-founders, and we’ve proved that we could execute. And our personalities are coachable: When someone criticises us, we don’t immediately deflect or deny, we listen.

“They were also quite interested in the tech that we were working on. They knew that we were technically credible. And they said they saw our potential.”

Yau said she believes their success is replicable.

“I want to show people that you don’t have to study tech to be in this field. You don’t have to come from a well-to-do family or a really great school or have a really great portfolio to be able to make a mark in society. That’s my personal motivation.

“And now, being in San Francisco has given me a sense of urgency and a way of thinking about running a business that I’ve not found in Singapore. People here have a strong sense of self and direction – they want to be special, and I want to bring that back to my friends in Singapore.”