Leading travel-tech platform Omio announced the launch of a dedicated technology hub in Singapore together with a strategic partnership with EDBI (the investment arm of SG Growth Capital).

This joint move, forming a cornerstone of Omio’s growth strategy in Southeast Asia, comes as the company reinvents its business around artificial intelligence and multimodal mobility.

Setting the Scene: Singapore as Strategic Launchpad

The Singapore hub—which officially opened in July 2025—will serve as what Omio calls its “AI-first launchpad” for mobility innovation across the region. Located in one of Asia’s most advanced tech ecosystems, the hub is charged with exploring how AI can transform the travel experience—both for consumers and for mobility partners. Omio intends to use the facility to support its global ambitions: making it possible for billions of people to “travel seamlessly, anywhere and anyway.”

Managing the hub is Maneesh Mishra, Head of AI at Omio, who leads a growing team of AI engineers, product managers and cross-functional specialists tasked with both regional expansion and global product evolution.

Why This Matters: Multimodal + AI Meets Asia

Omio has long been a standout in the travel-tech space thanks to its multimodal booking engine that spans trains, buses, flights, ferries and airport transfers. With over a decade of experience integrating global transport data, the company offers one of the largest bookable inventories of transport options available.
The move to an AI-centric strategy is thus a logical evolution: AI not just as hype, but as an enabler of seamless, personalized, highly-efficient mobility. Omio emphasises that AI is already part of its pre-booking, booking-stage and post-booking ecosystem—and now the Singapore hub will accelerate that across the fastest-growing region on the planet.

In Southeast Asia alone—markets like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and Cambodia—Omio has recently scaled up its operations, introducing thousands of carriers in flights and buses and adding ferry options. The new hub, backed by the EDBI partnership, will expand commercial and supply partnerships, fuel recruitment and deepen network integration.

The EDBI Partnership: Amplifying Singapore’s Digital Mobility Credentials

EDBI enters this collaboration as a clear signal of Singapore’s ambition to be a global digital-mobility and AI hub. The investment and strategic support partner are intended to help Omio scale in the region while tapping into Singapore’s ecosystem of talent, regulation, innovation infrastructure and connectivity.
As Charmaine Kng, Partner at EDBI, explains:

“We are delighted to partner with Omio as it establishes its APAC Regional Headquarters and Global AI Centre of Excellence in Singapore… EDBI’s investment supports this next phase of growth and underscores Singapore’s position as a trusted hub for digital innovation and AI development.”

On Omio’s side, founder and CEO Naren Shaam highlights the choice of Singapore as “the archetypal launchpad for bringing us closer to our vision of unifying global transportation and delivering a seamless travel experience for everyone.”

Global Footprint & Ambitions

The hub opening marks a key milestone. Omio currently operates in 46 countries across four continents and sells more than 80,000 tickets a day—equating to roughly one traveller every second. Earlier this month the company also announced expansion into Brazil, further extending its global reach.
With the new hub, Omio intends not just incremental growth but a step-change in product capability: linking every mode of mobility, powering it by AI to unlock personalized routing, dynamic pricing, smarter supply-side integration, and indeed a seamless user experience from origin to destination.

What This Means for Travel Tech and Connectivity

For Alertify’s audience—travel-tech professionals, roaming and connectivity specialists, hospitality and mobility partners—the significance of this move lies in three interlocking trends:

• Multimodal orchestration: travellers no longer want siloed experiences (book flight here, bus there). An integrated platform that handles all legs of a journey is increasingly table stakes.
• AI as enabler, not experiment: From dynamic routing to predictive demand, AI is entering travel tech not as a bolt-on but as core. Omio’s hub signals that the travel-mobility sector sees AI as foundational.
• Asia-Pacific as tech and mobility frontier: With high mobile penetration, complex transport ecosystems, and heterogenous markets, Southeast Asia is an ideal testbed for sophisticated mobility tech. A Singapore hub gives Omio regional depth and agility.

Drawing Comparisons: What Competitors Are Doing

While Omio is reaching for the AI-multimodal crown, peers are also investing. For instance, players such as Kiwi.com and Skyscanner have advanced search-and-book models, though largely focussed on air travel or limited ground-transport aggregation. Others, like Rome2Rio (which is in fact integrated into Omio) specialise in discovery rather than booking.
Omio’s differentiator is the combination of supply-rich multimodal ticketing + AI-powered journey orchestration. In that sense, the Singapore hub addresses the “final mile” of mobility innovation—where many travel-tech firms still struggle.
Moreover, within connectivity and travel tech sectors—such as eSIM/roaming, hospitality mobility or transport-data platforms—there’s growing pressure to knit together richer data, smarter insights and real-time personalisation. Omio’s move represents a template: infrastructure investment (the hub), strategic capital (EDBI), region-specific growth (APAC), and tech-led product escalation (AI).

Conclusion: What’s Next—and Why It Matters

For Alertify readers deeply embedded in travel tech, roaming and connectivity, the Omio-Singapore-EDBI story is more than headline news—it’s a roadmap. It signals that mobility platforms must evolve rapidly: from listing transport options to orchestrating seamless journeys powered by deep data and AI. The choice of Singapore underscores the race for Asia-Pacific leadership in mobility innovation.
What to watch: how quickly Omio rolls out additional transport modes (e.g., ride-share, micro-mobility), how the AI centre translates into differentiated customer experiences, and whether the supply-side network scaling can keep pace with product ambition. In a marketplace where companies adapting slower will face commoditization, Omio’s move may well position it ahead—but the challenge now is execution.
In short: for any travel-tech, roaming, or hospitality business, the lesson is clear—integrate, innovate, and scale with an open mind to AI and mobility convergence, or risk being overtaken. Omio has placed its bet. The next chapter worldwide might depend on it.