By Yantoultra Ngui

SINGAPORE, Oct 3 (Reuters) - Artificial intelligence

startups are attracting record sums of venture capital, but some

of the world's largest investors warned that early-stage

valuations are starting to look frothy, senior investment

executives said on Friday.

"There's a little bit of a hype bubble going on in the

early-stage venture space," said Bryan Yeo, group chief

investment officer at Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC

, as part of a panel discussion at the Milken Institute

Asia Summit 2025 in Singapore.

"Any company startup with an AI label will be valued right

up there at huge multiples of whatever the small revenue (is),"

he said. "That might be fair for some companies and probably not

for others."

In the first quarter of 2025, AI startups raised $73.1

billion globally, accounting for 57.9% of all venture capital

funding, according to PitchBook. The surge was driven by funding

rounds like OpenAI's $40 billion capital raising, as investors

raced to catch the AI wave.

"Market expectations could be way ahead of what the

technology could deliver," Yeo said. "We're seeing a major AI

capex boom today. It is masking some of the potential weaknesses

that might be going on in the economy."

Todd Sisitsky, president of alternative asset manager TPG

, said the fear of missing out is dangerous for

investors, though he added that views were divided on whether

the AI sector had formed a bubble.

Some AI firms are hitting $100 million in revenue within

months, he said, while others in early-stage ventures command

valuations at between $400 million and $1.2 billion per

employee. He said that was "breathtaking."

(Reporting by Yantoultra Ngui; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus.)