Participated · Series A · Aug 2025

Prefer, founded in 2022, uses a proprietary fermentation and roasting process to transform upcycled food-manufacturing byproducts (rice and soy) into flavours and ingredients. The company has commercialised soluble coffee and cocoa powders and supplies FMCG brands, food manufacturers, private-label retailers, and flavour houses. According to its life-cycle analysis, Prefer’s coffee can have up to 85% lower emissions and is 50% more affordable than traditional Arabica. Prefer announced commercial partnerships with Ajinomoto Co., (Thailand) Ltd and The Coffee Ferm (Australia/New Zealand) and has commercial foodservice activity with Melvados in Singapore. The startup plans to scale its pilot production through toll manufacturers in key markets, deepen R&D on cocoa flavour development, and expand global partnerships with a continued focus in Asia. Financially, Prefer completed an oversubscribed US$4.2M pre-A round, bringing total equity raised to US$6.2M. Prefer is a Singapore-based startup that makes bean-free coffee alternatives using a fermentation technology that repurposes leftover bread, soy pulp, and spent grain to recreate coffee flavor, aroma and the brewing experience. The company supplies ground coffee compatible with standard espresso machines to B2B customers — cafes, coffee chains, distributors, and flavor houses — and also offers ready-to-drink bottled beverages for events, retail and quick-service restaurants. Prefer says its product generates an estimated 10 times less CO2 than conventional coffee beans and offers highly adjustable caffeine levels, from decaffeinated to twice the caffeine of regular coffee. Twelve locations in Singapore currently carry Prefer, including Dough, Foreword Coffee Roasters, and several SaladStop! outlets. The company plans to expand ground coffee and ready-to-drink distribution across Asia-Pacific, beginning with Singapore and the Philippines, and to invest in growing its production capacity.

Led · Seed · Mar 2024

Yolk.fm is a social media platform centered on non-text, short-form visual interactions using emojis and dynamic stickers. Users can create dynamic stickers from selfies, hand gestures, or surrounding objects and use them to interact with other users' dynamic content and static photos. The service emphasizes fast, image-first communication rather than written text. Yolk.fm is operated by parent company Drigmo. The company recently completed a financing event, indicating early-stage investor interest. No operating metrics or product roadmap details were provided in the article.

Participated · Seed · Feb 2024

Yolk is a camera-first social app that converts whatever users point their iPhone at into segmented, looping “live stickers” using on-device AI (Apple Vision APIs, segmentation and an open-source face-parsing model). The app forbids typed text, pushing communication toward short animated selfies, hand gestures and custom collages shared in a feed and one-to-one messages. Profiles act as curated collections of expressive stickers and the product emphasizes a raw, retro “messthetic” aimed at teens and people in their early 20s. The team is building out of Singapore and the Netherlands and the three co-founders are Piet Walraven, Meiwin Fu and Zihui Chen. Yolk is iPhone-only and just exited beta with an official launch on February 26. Financially, the startup secured $1.25M in pre-seed funding from a mix of Asian funds and angels and plans to experiment with subscription and premium features as potential monetization paths. Growth plans described in the article include TikTok marketing, outreach via Telegram/WhatsApp groups, university outreach and an invite-gated onboarding flow to encourage networked adoption.

Led · Seed · Aug 2022

Jackett offers a teacher-focused operating system that automates time-consuming assessment tasks such as creating, scanning, grading, and personalizing exams using AI and machine learning. The platform brings adaptive learning and data-driven insights into the classroom to enable personalized learning for every student. Teachers can scan, create, and mark assessments through the app and leverage automation to reduce administrative workload. Jackett positions itself as a next-generation toolset for educators seeking to integrate assessment, analytics, and personalization. Founded in 2021 by Charlotte Trudgill and Rachiket Arya, the company is building features to support classroom workflows and data-informed instruction. The startup has stated plans to use recent funding to improve its operating system and to enter emerging markets.

Led · Seed · Oct 2021

Vouch, founded in 2016 by Joseph Ling and based in Singapore, builds digital hotel management and guest-experience platforms. Its guest experience platform combines AI and chatbot technology to enable QR-code check-in, room requests, food-and-beverage ordering, and quick answers to FAQs without requiring an app. The company says hotels used its technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic to reduce physical touchpoints and manage social distancing. Vouch reports partnerships with Frasers Hospitality, Pan Pacific Group, and Hyatt Hotels and claims to cover over 25% of hotel rooms in Singapore. The firm plans to use the US$1.1M seed investment to develop a new range of guest experience platforms and expand into Hong Kong, Macau, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. To mark its entry into Europe, Vouch opened its third in-country branch in the UK.