They backtested a 430% cumulative return.

Then the first thing Nicolò Carpaneda did was correct the number before I could question it.

Pantarai founders Nicolò Carpaneda and Bastien Seignolles built Cartesio, an AI that reads market conditions daily and reshuffles a portfolio to match, choosing a rule-based explainable system over a black box in a year when the rest of the industry is racing the other way.

Part 2 is the machine itself: the backtest, the month it protected capital and still couldn't keep the client calm, the trade-off of staying fully liquid with no leverage, and why they're building from Singapore while the company's centre of gravity stays in Europe.

This is Issue 04 of Straits Signal, hosted by Kim Yeoh, media founder and strategic analyst, former investor relations at a private equity fund and co-founder of a commercial fleet electrification company.

What you'll take away from this episode:

• Why a system that reads markets daily still can't tell you if gold is cheap, and what a black box would have missed
• The correction that mattered more than the pitch, what the €1.5 million figure is and isn't
• The month the fund lost three percent while the market lost twenty, and why that still wasn't an easy conversation
• No leverage, no derivatives, only liquid ETFs, the alpha left on the table for the sake of trust
• Building from Singapore while Europe stays the operational hub
• Whether Pantarai is a product company or the wedge into something bigger

Missed Part 1, the partnership, the 2009 crash, and the eighteen months Nicolò spent teaching himself to code: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5GWDNWPmGpIdFAMgf0FS7m?si=RzTXhmD0T5-jj3daMscG5g

Watch Cartesio's daily market read: pantar.ai

The backtest and performance figures discussed in this series are the founders' own, gross of fees, presented as a historical proxy and not a forecast. This conversation is for information only and is not investment advice or a solicitation to invest. Pantarai ADAPT is regulated in the UK and Europe and is not licensed by MAS in Singapore.

Straits Signal — Intelligence from Southeast Asia. Energy. Mobility. Capital.