We're stoked for everyone to meet Iterative’s Winter 2024 batch!
For this batch, we received 1,000+ applications and had 500+ calls interviewing companies. From there, we selected these 23 companies. That's an acceptance rate of 2.11%.
To kick off the batch, we hosted an in-person orientation in Bali. Founders participated in learning sessions on how to make bets and generate insights, 1:1 office hours with the Partners to discuss metrics and growth strategies and more. To the founders, thank you for making time and trusting Iterative to be a part of your journey. We're excited for Demo Day in May - until then, our founders are back in their respective countries and hard at work.
This is our fifth year of running Iterative and our eighth batch of companies - we're grateful to continue working with amazing companies in Southeast Asia.
Learn more about the companies below:
- ArmasTec (Singapore) - Specialises in air-powered fabric exoskeletons for manual handling
- 1Long (Vietnam) - Responsible investment plans for Vietnam's rising affluent
- Arogga (Bangladesh) - Bangladesh’s no. 1 online pharmacy and healthcare platform
- Arshipelago (Indonesia) - Ocean shipping platform to digitally enable Indonesia's domestic freight forwarders
- Blitz (Singapore) - B2B data-driven last mile EV delivery service for enterprises
- Finskor (Indonesia) - SaaS that empowers financial institutions to digitalise and make AI based data-informed decision
- Fluentjoy (Vietnam) - Interactive short-video app for English learners
- GetMo (Southeast Asia) - Provides capital to Southeast Asia SMEs by leveraging on open banking, direct debit and AI underwriting technology
- Halana (Vietnam) - The leading B2B marketplace consolidating the supply chain for industrial goods in Vietnam
- Katalis (Singapore) - AI tools for e-commerce success
- Lawdify (Singapore) - Building AI agents that run specialised tasks for lawyers
- Manuport (Indonesia) - Indonesia's end-to-end supply chain solution for apparel industry
- Momofin (Indonesia) - Document and contract management system integrated with e-Meterai
- Persona Studios (Singapore) - Official AI personas for creators, influencers and celebrities
- Rootally (Singapore) - AI therapist for musculoskeletal conditions
- SansDebt (Singapore) - Automated overdue invoices management
- Saola (Singapore) - Creates AI employees for all things real estate
- Superbench (Singapore) - AI operator for home service companies
- TapTalent (Singapore) - All in one AI-powered talent sourcing platform
- WaxWing (US-based) - AI-powered WorkOS for marketers to brainstorm, plan, prioritise and execute growth marketing strategies
- WeAssist (Malaysia) - Connects hospitals and clinics in Malaysia to licensed medical staff
There are 2 other companies that are in stealth mode.
ArmasTec
Specialises in air-powered fabric exoskeletons for manual handling
Why we're excited: ArmasTec is building a revolutionary fabric exoskeleton that protects posture and prevents workplace injury. Building off research that Rainier (the founder) conducted during his PhD at NUS, ArmasTec allows for 2x spinal support at 20% the cost and 50% the weight of traditional metal exoskeletons. We believe that Rainier’s ability to combine cutting edge research and human-centered design has made ArmasTec one of the best exoskeletons we’ve seen on the market.
Founders: Rainier Natividad (Co-founder), Serene Wong (Co-founder)
1Long
Responsible investment plans for Vietnam's rising affluent
Why we're excited: 1Long is building next-generation financial products for the fast-growing, aspirational savers in Vietnam — a $600 billion wealth market waiting to be unlocked. We believe that the team’s strong track record building digital financial products for the country, coupled with a deep market need for frictionless, passive-investing products, makes 1Long a top company to watch. We believe that in developing markets especially, reducing barriers and creatively structuring low-risk, passive assets is the most likely path to wealth generation for millions.
Founders: Michael Do (CEO), Joshua Hong (CBO), Hoang Nguyen (COO)
Arogga
Bangladesh’s no. 1 online pharmacy and healthcare platform
Why we're excited: Arogga is already the #1 e-pharmacy in Bangladesh, solving the critical problem of combatting counterfeit goods in the $12B Bangladesh pharmaceutical market by providing safe, authentic medicines via doorstep delivery. Founders Rosina and Yawar have razor-sharp execution focus and deep knowledge of on-ground consumer needs. We believe Arogga is going to be the winner in the e-pharmacy category in Bangladesh, and we are very excited to be a partner in their next phase to scale.
Founders: Rosina Mazumder (CEO), Yawar Mehboob (CFO), Fahad Hossain (COO), Shamim Hasan (CTO)
Arshipelago
Ocean shipping platform to digitally enable Indonesia's domestic freight forwarders
Why we're excited: Arshipelago is empowering inter-island freight forwarders across Indonesia’s many islands via instant pricing, demand consolidation and software. We believe that Indonesia’s unique geographic makeup and strong domestic ocean shipping market makes this a unique problem to solve, and the Arshipelago team, with strong background in tech-enabled logistics, is on the path to digitising this segment.
Founders: Achmad Feisal Anshari (CEO), Sherwin Setiobudi (CFO)
Blitz
B2B data-driven last mile EV delivery service for enterprises
Why we're excited: Delivery inefficiency is the most critical challenge across the e-commerce and logistics industries. Blitz is revolutionising last-mile delivery by leveraging AI and EV telematics to enhance delivery efficiency through its white-label EV fleets, operations, and tech stack. We believe the future of last-mile delivery can be cheaper and faster while also being environmentally friendly at the same time.
Founder: Saivya Chauhan (CEO)
Finskor
SaaS that empowers financial institutions to digitalise and make AI based data-informed decision
Why we're excited: As the financial services sector in Indonesia continues to modernise, traditional players like banks will need to adapt and increase digitisation levels across its process. Currently, SME credit underwriting is broken - 80% of the process is wasted on bank statement analysis being done manually on spreadsheets to validate transactions and check for fraud. We believe that Finskor’s credit analytics software will disrupt this and enable both traditional financial institutions and fintech to underwrite with better accuracy and higher efficiency.
Founders: Wildiyanto Yawin (CEO), Yohanes Rico (COO)
FluentJoy
Interactive short-video app for English learners
Why we're excited: Fluentjoy helps people learning English as a second language to practice conversational fluency via a short-video learning app. Jose, the founder, has spent decades as a growth leader, including in homegrown Southeast Asian startups. At Fluentjoy, he is blending a new form factor (short-form educational videos), customised learning journeys and algorithmic recommendation to empower the next generation to speak with confidence and fluency. Fluentjoy has significant global reach and we believe the company is an example of building from Southeast Asia for the world.
Founder: Jose Lis (CEO)
GetMo
Provides capital to Southeast Asia SMEs by leveraging on open banking, direct debit and AI underwriting technology
Why we're excited: There is a $60B financing gap in Indonesia for SMEs mostly due to businesses not having the collateral needed to get a loan. We think that’s changing as there are more sources of data and better technology to underwrite. That’s why we’re excited to back GetMo. GetMo provides capital and financial intelligence to fast-growing SMEs in Southeast Asia, starting with Indonesia. By being pioneers in open banking and direct debit technology and leveraging AI scoring and API integrations with third-party providers, they're able to provide capital to entrepreneurs in a matter of days—without collateral and with excellent customer service.
Founders: Nikita Semenov (CEO), Alex Makarov (CPO), Sergei Kuzmin (CFO)
Halana
The leading B2B marketplace consolidating the supply chain for industrial goods in Vietnam
Why we're excited: Halana is a B2B marketplace for the 150,000+ DIY hardware stores in Vietnam, providing a wide catalog of goods to urban and rural hardware stores with next-day fulfilment. Anthony is one of the most persistent and gritty founders we have met, and his knowledge of on-ground realities for DIY hardware store owners and supply chain participants is unparalleled. We believe in a future where these mom-and-pop stores are empowered with digitalised ordering, doorstep delivery and seamless payment terms — all of which Halana is enabling.
Founders: Anthony Ho (CEO), Jacky Nguyễn (CTO)
Katalis
AI tools for e-commerce success
Why we're excited: We’re excited to see how Gen AI can bring data-driven marketing efforts to the next level, especially for solopreneur or small size e-commerce sellers with constraint on resources.
Katalis helps e-commerce sellers get more customers with less cost and time through data analytics and Gen AI for product listing and ads asset creation, launch, and continuous optimisation. Imagine having a creative strategist plus a data analyst but for a fraction of the cost.
Founders: Michelle Fno (CEO), Vinay Kamal (Director), Nathanael Pribady (CTO)
Lawdify
Building AI agents that run specialised tasks for lawyers
Why we're excited: It’s obvious to us that AI will play a big role in changing the way people work in legal industry. An associate at a law firm currently wastes significant amount of time on manual document review and due diligence, and 30% of this time, it's not chargeable to the client. That’s why we’re excited to back Lawdify. Lawdify provides AI legal agents that run specialised document-intensive tasks like eDiscovery and legal due diligence on behalf of lawyers so they can reclaim their time to do high-value work.
Founders: Eliza Jiang (CEO), David Lucker (CTO)
Manuport
Indonesia's end-to-end supply chain solution for the apparel industry
Why we're excited: Manuport is a B2B apparel supply chain platform that helps small and medium-sized apparel manufacturers in Indonesia aggregate demand, enable group buying, reduce cost and lead time from design to delivery, and access suitable financing options. The team has deep experience in the apparel industry and understanding of how leveraging technology can reduce costs and improve efficiency in Indonesia’s $20B apparel industry. We believe that their vision of improving Indonesia's apparel export by establishing world-class efficiency and capabilities is a massive opportunity.
Founders: Vincent Huberta (CEO), Gilbert Lityo (COO), Romario Suwandy (CPO)
Momofin
Document and contract management system integrated with e-Meterai
Why we're excited: While businesses across industries in Indonesia are gearing towards more digitised workflow, many of them still print, sign, and get stamp duty on paper to make the documents legally effective. As the first e-Meterai Affixing App in Indonesia, Momofin is changing that by providing document and contract management software with capability to digital stamp (e-Meterai) and sign with 100% of the process being online. We’re excited to support Momofin to scale into the #1 end-to-end contract management system in Indonesia.
Founders: Rorian Pratyaksa (CEO), Gregorius Yoga Pratama (CFO), Darell Hoei (CTO)
Persona Studios
Official AI personas for creators, influencers and celebrities
Why we're excited: Persona Studios is building a tool for creators to connect more deeply with their fans, by offering AI-powered “voice clones” that engage over text and voice notes. We believe in a near future where creators and celebrities are infinitely reproducible via AI — allowing every fan to be enabled with a personalised yet authentic touchpoint with their heroes. Persona Studios is building exactly for that future — with a seamless user experience and deep customisation that makes for a magical experience.
Founders: Kevin Davis (CEO), Andrew McCrow (COO)
Rootally AI
AI therapist for musculoskeletal conditions
Why we're excited: Rootally is a physical-therapy app for muscular-skeleton disorders, clinically validated with leading Singapore hospitals. With the rise of remote work, posture-related chronic-pain is becoming an epidemic. We believe that the Rootally team’s approach, which combines state-of-the-art computer vision and posture correction in an app-based exercise format, alongside a deep understanding of current physical therapy workflows, enables their product to help millions in their health journey.
Founders: Amit Jindal (Co-founder), Danish Ali (Co-founder)
SansDebt
Automated overdue invoices management
Why we're excited: SansDebt uses LLMs and Gen-AI to automate overdue invoices mediation and settlement. Despite the explosion of BNPL and various fintech-enabled lending products, managing overdue invoices and debt remains a manual, cumbersome and — at times — inhumane process. SansDebt leverages the flexibility and infinite empathy of Gen-AI to automate the mediation and the settlement of invoices, giving debtors a more flexible and comfortable experience while reducing financial operations overhead for lenders including in house "chasing" or using debt collection agencies and more importantly, small amounts invoices that are often simply wrote off due to recovery cost. We believe that AI’s ability to scale “difficult conversations” while producing business results is incredible, and overdue invoice recovery is a massive and timely use-case for the technology.
Founders: Arnaud Rubeck (CEO), Andrei Epure (CTO)
Saola
Saola creates AI employees for all things real estate
Why we're excited: Saola uses Gen AI to help agents and brokerages focus on higher level tasks rather than managing client requests (navigating through different options based on budgets, getting neighbourhood information and recommendations, setting up showings, etc). We believe the future of customer management will largely be done by AI products and a great place to start is in the real estate business where customers want a bit of hand-holding and data is plentiful.
Founders: Eugene Bisovka (CEO), Razmik Sukyasov (COO)
Superbench
AI operator for home service companies
Why we're excited: Superbench is an AI-powered sales and scheduling software for home services companies — the ServiceNow for APAC. We are excited by founder Jingjing’s deep domain experience and insights from running one of Singapore’s largest home services companies, which has directly translated into the design of their AI operational assistant. We believe in the potential of AI to unlock massive efficiencies especially for small businesses with complex workflows; Superbench is doing just that.
Founders: Jingjing Zhong (CEO), Yan Kai Ng (CPO), Dmitrii Bolotov (CTO)
TapTalent
All in one AI-powered talent sourcing platform
Why we're excited: Recruiting the right talents is a universal challenge and companies are paying hefty retainers to recruitment agencies that are still operating in a “spray and pray” way - with brute-force style outreach and low candidate response rate. We’re excited to back TapTalent who’s solving this by creating a unified collaborative recruitment platform that ties all the inbound, outbound, and screening services in a targeted and collaborative recruitment system that spans across different channels such as email, LinkedIn, and WhatsApp.
Founders: Dhruv Bhagat (CEO), Shubham Arora (CTO)
WaxWing
AI-powered WorkOS for marketers to brainstorm, plan, prioritise and execute growth marketing strategies
Why we're excited: Waxwing is a Gen AI-powered growth marketing platform that incorporates the latest growth marketing frameworks, market trends and task-specific strategies to turbocharge every stage of the growth experimentation process. Waxwing has already achieved significant results for pilot customers with varying target demographics and growth tactics. We are excited to see founders Tarun and Samarth build the world-class AI growth copilot for the world.
Founders: Tarun Jain (Co-founder), Samarth T (Co-founder)
WeAssist
Connects hospitals and clinics in Malaysia to licensed medical staff
Why we're excited: WeAssist is a healthcare staffing platform - matching pre-approved, healthcare staff on-demand to hospitals, ICUs and clinics across Malaysia. Healthcare workers are highly specialised, depending on the unit, the specialised skillsets or certifications required and shift timing. The WeAssist team has been able to leverage technology to efficiently place staff across multiple types of healthcare organisations and specialties. We see strong growth in this segment across the region, and believe the team’s deep understanding of hospital operations has resulted in a winning product.
Founded by Tiffany Khoo (CEO).
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