Staple, a Singapore-based AI-driven document processing company, has secured US$4 million in a pre-Series A funding round led by Wavemaker Partners.

The fresh funding will support Staple’s global market expansion, AI technology refinement, and expansion of its document processing solutions. As part of its expansion strategy, Staple aims to strengthen its presence in key markets to better address businesses’ document management needs.

Founded in 2018, Staple offers a comprehensive platform that leverages AI to bridge the gap between physical documents and digital workflows.

Also Read: Deep tech startup Nibertex secures funding for sustainable textile technology

Staple’s solution is able to process any document type, including structured, semi-structured, and unstructured formats. It also manages data in over 200 languages and is utilised by customers across more than 53 countries.

Designed for enhanced efficiency, accuracy, scalability, and transparency, Staple’s cloud-based platform features a user-friendly design that makes it easy to integrate with existing systems. Its suite of specialised modules, from scanning to workflow automation, caters to a wide array of document processing requirements, offering a reliable and affordable solution for businesses globally.

“We are focused on breaking down language barriers and simplifying complex document processing tasks. With this funding, we’re setting our sights on broadening our impact, particularly in regions rich in linguistic diversity and complexity, such as Southeast Asia. We aim to expand our market presence and continue innovating, making our solutions even more accessible and efficient for businesses,” said Ben Stein, CEO and Co-founder of Staple.

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Fundraising or preparing your startup for fundraising? Build your investor network, search from 400+ SEA investors on e27, and get connected or get insights regarding fundraising. Try e27 Pro for free today.

Image credit: Staple

The post AI-powered Staple raises US$4M to streamline global document management appeared first on e27.

Many founders view the panacea to securing funding from VCs in the fundraising process as getting the first meeting; once they are in they will win! The reality in most scenarios is different, as what you do when you are in the room, and how you happened to get there –pitch deck– have already contributed to your odds.

Let me quickly touch on two fallacies here to illustrate the preceding paragraph.

Fallacy #1: I just need to get in the room

What do you think is going to happen when you are in the hallowed ‘room’ and the VC is already not interested? Not much other than a more developed relationship, which is of course not bad, but there is only so much time for that.

Let me give you one example. I have had founders reply, “I get you don’t believe in our business model and the timing at this stage of the market is bad, but I am much better at selling in person, can we have a meeting anyway!”

In many sectors, I have already developed a thesis of what and when I want to invest in something, so selling me isn’t going to change anything.  You are spending your time with the wrong investor and you could spend that time gaining more traction, which would change your outcome with me in fact!

Fallacy #2: Once I get in the room it doesn’t matter how I got there

How I came to know about your business does have an impact. If you got one (or ideally more than one) referral to me from someone I trust and has made useful introductions before (many people send bad deal flow), then I will take everything more seriously.

If I already know something about your business and have had the chance to talk to a sector expert or research your business beforehand, then the meeting will be far more productive (read potentially more successful).

This leads to the point of this blog — why I want a pitch decks before a meeting in the fundraise process

I have been debating and analysing the ‘end-to-end’ process of investing in companies, to not only make better decisions and offer a better experience to founders (e.g. how to respond faster), but to be more efficient and effective in the use of time.

Charles Hudson writes over at SoftTech just they about why he doesn’t generally look at decks before meeting, and whilst there are valid opinions, which I agree with, my view results in the opposite position.

Also Read: Pro pitch deck tips for beginners

I must emphasise that the views here are entirely my own and do not represent that of my partners. In addition, this is the current state of my thinking, which as ever is open to be stand corrected. To founders, who I deeply respect, don’t find a reason to take offence. You need to have a thick skin and understand raising money is a game to be played to the rules of those who are setting them, and knowledge is power.

Pitch decks

Let’s dig into decks first, as once we agree on what they are, are for, do and don’t do, we can better form a view as to whether they should be a prerequisite for a meeting.

What is a pitch deck?

A pitch deck is a short (10-20 slides) PowerPoint presentation (NOT a Word doc), which succinctly summarizes your business in order to communicate to investors that they should consider investing in you and ‘invest’ time to evaluate doing so. To be clear, this should actually be a PDF, converted from PowerPoint. It prevents system error and people changing your slides etc.

What are pitch decks for?

Decks are a ‘Teaser’ sales document to get you on the path to investment, nothing else.

They:

• Communicate what you do and that your company fits into their investment mandate / investment interests;
• Elicit preliminary interest in your company from investors, so they want to know more;
• Are an opportunity to showcase your business and team on softer metrics.

What pitch decks don’t do

Decks do not serve to communicate:

• The passion and energy of the team;
• Each and every nuance of your business;
• Quite how amazing the opportunity really is;
• That an investor is going to invest on the basis of it.

Types of pitch decks

It is absolutely imperative to understand that there are different types of pitch decks for different situations and to answer different questions.

Also Read: Pitch decks are important and all startups should have it; here are 5 things to do when creating one

Fundamentally there are two types of pitch deck:

• Reading decks:

  • Situation: These are read primarily without founders.
  • Form: There are typically more words per page and there are more slides.
  • Objective: Founders are seeking to educate as well as communicate here.
  • Number/variances: There will be multiple. Firstly is a teaser to get a meeting (I said it), secondly to support due diligence and thirdly to support any ‘nagging’ questions founders may seek to ameliorate (Such as details on their NPS to show customers love them).

• Presentation decks:

  • Situation: These are presented by founders in person and/or on a call.
  • Form: They are graphical with fewer words. Founders are solely focused on communication, supporting what it is they are saying. The focus is on the founder not slide (hopefully)
  • Number/variances: Generally founders will only have one of these, but they may have another if requested, such as to address questions that have arisen during the investment process

What I believe a good pitch deck covers

There are more bad pitch decks than not. For the purpose of this discussion, I will talk specifically about the one I would like to receive before having a meeting in the fundraising process.

The key tenets of approaching a good first deck are:

• Keep it to the point and communicate the salient high-level points in a compelling manner
• Just cover the key aspects (See “What should be in a deck”). There should be a takeaway supporting each and every slide at the top or bottom of the slide, and the pitch deck needs a logical progression to a conclusion (Invest!).
• Put less faith in this document. This isn’t a silver bullet, so founders shouldn’t think “If I don’t put in these slides, I’m going to fail.” This is the key reason why I believe founders write decks that are too long.
• Spend a lot of time making it pretty and readable. People don’t like to read ugly pitch decks and it says a lot about your attention to detail (Note: I am an ex-M&A banker).
• Use images and a little humour, in most cases you aren’t talking to a robot. (Note: Most investors are actually pretty cool, not all)

What should be in a pitch deck:

• Overview: In two sentences, what is the business? Put the business in a box, even if it is not a perfect one. “We are Uber for toasters. We are the future of convenient toast in the morning for busy mothers”
• Problem: What is the fundamental problem you are solving? It needs to be a real one that a lot of people have and are not having solved.
• Solution: How are you fixing this problem and how are you approaching it?
• Market size/opportunity: How big is the market you are realistically going after. If you aren’t going to the US, I don’t want to see that on the slide, unless it is indicative of the market opportunity where you are focussed. The opportunity size I am going to use to do math to figure out your potential exit value, so make it useful and reasonable (Note: I will always do a valuation exercise on a call with founders’ data points)
• Product: Show me pictures which illustrate use cases and benefits. Your product these days needs to be polished.
• Team: Pictures of the key team I am investing in, title and name, what they focus on, bullets/logos of prior and relevant experience. Key for me is answering the question “Why will this team beat everyone else and why are they the best team to back?”
• Marketing: Simply put, how are you going to get big? If your CAC is greater than your LTV, that is good to know too. I need to see that there are scalable, repeatable channels for you to grow.
• Traction: “Up and to the right.” What milestones have been achieved, what is the stage of the business?
• Numbers: What are your high level numbers? I want to know how big you are already as it is linked to your valuation and stage. It is not because I want to get confidential information (See above regarding valuation exercise).
• Funding and application thereof: How much money are you looking for, how long does it last and broadly what are you going to use the money for?

Hopefully you will have noticed that I haven’t asked for details of the ‘secret sauce’ so I can sell it to the Russians. This is high level. Also, if you are reaching out to an investor you should already be willing to trust them, otherwise stop spamming.

Also Read: A guide to creating the ultimate investor pitch deck

What do investors fundamentally learn from decks before a meeting?

Whether we are likely to invest. Simply put, decks go into two buckets which have binary outcomes:

1. Good ones: Get founders a meeting and see if we will invest
2. Bad ones: Pass

So what are the main reasons why I want to have a deck before a meeting?

Now we discussed decks, there are two main reasons why I want them before a meeting and they all come down to working smart, not hard:

Time saving

• Do I want a meeting: If I don’t actually want to meet a founder, then why waste both of our time?
• There isn’t much new under the sun: There aren’t many fundamentally new business models. So with a few exceptions, I already have a view as to what I want to invest in broadly. I am also focussed on Southeast Asia, where I actually prefer (again generally) non-innovative businesses.
• Founders never ‘spoil the surprise’: The punchline is important when telling a joke, not raising money. I want to know what it is I might invest in and whether I am interested. Founders can subsequently ‘surprise’ me with their energy and how committed they are when I ready to be excited

Also read: What is inside the pitch deck that will woo investors to my business?

Form better decisions

• Create a ‘dot’ to form a line: Every interaction, whether email, material, call or meet is a data point or ‘dot’. Over time these dots line up to form a view or ‘line’ of the founders and the business.
• Make a meeting or call productive: I like to get down to it, so if I am interested in investing and I know something about the business, the time spent with a founder is productive.
• Focus on talking not researching: I want to focus my grey matter on responding and challenging what founders are saying. If I am distracted, such as reading your deck or researching competitors then you don’t have me, and that is a very bad thing.

What do I do with decks when they are sent to me?

I get a lot of decks and never have the time to read all the ones which are inbounded (I mainly reach out to companies actively). Founders need to understand that it is not rudeness and they aren’t special. If investors don’t reply, sometimes it is literally because their email didn’t get opened and it is stuck in a massive backlog. Understand this simple truth, and follow up a lot.

The steps:

Quick read #1:

• I may not even read your carefully crafted summary email before double-clicking on your deck and firing it up.
• I press ‘down’ every 2 seconds to get a 50,000 feet on what I am dealing with and to see if I close it. That’s a 15 second exercise.
• If I am interested a will skim through, focusing on what ‘appears’ relevant, skip anything which ‘appears’ boring or too intense and then that’s that.
• IF there is something I notice where founders are teaching me something, you have my attention and I will read the whole thing in detail. That’s pretty rare, but we invested in a company that did that.
• Decide on next step
• Email not interested and delete email, or schedule a call. Regardless, I track pitches in a system and note whether I will follow up in future in case things change.

Quick read #2 before a call

• Depending on how interested I am I will scan the deck again to refresh my memory of who and what I am about to talk about. I hate being inadequately prepared, so prep time is linked to how well I know an industry.

Read whilst we are talking (more and less)

• I always have the deck open on a call or to hand if in a meeting. I look for stand out points I need clarified. If call is going well I don’t look at the deck again after 10 minutes and focus on engaging with the founder
• If there is a new, visual presentation, I still have the deck to hand to refer to (and will pick up on any discrepancy between the two of them)

Share it internally if I am interested after a call and see about having a meeting. At that point I am really interested and any meeting is serious.

• I will circulate a deck to partners to get their view with a quick summary of our chat and a line stating whether we should push to get the deal done or wait to monitor traction.

It is worth noting that for my fundraise process, I personally prefer to have a call before a meeting. I have a predilection to be amicable with people, so by having a call to review an opportunity purely on data and the founders intellectual ability to respond in active dialogue, without the opportunity for creating interpersonal bias, I believe is has weighted advantage.

What I don’t do with your deck

Now let me be clear about what I do not do with decks. Other commentators mention experiences of founders having emotional responses to the treatment of decks, I will get frank on those.

• Study it. I almost never study a deck. If I need to, the founder has done something wrong by writing too much, or not being clear
• Think there is a correlation between founder feelings and my time spent looking at a deck, nor care if founders think I am lazy for not having studied it
  • I am not being paid to read decks by founders and nor do investors have a duty of care to whom are most likely strangers having received an email. If that were the case, the spammed community would support more Nigerian princes with difficulties getting their money out of the country (Note: I have lived in Nigeria).
• Invest in a deck, I invest in the team and the general problem they are solving
  • I am an early stage investor so I don’t invest in a deck, per se. The deck just says something about the team who authored it.
  • Later stage investors will more likely emphasise a deck as you will have hopefully large and validated numbers.  They are investing in the continued upside, not a new idea, and the team is likely fungible.
• Prepare a list of questions to ask founders
  • I don’t sit down and compose a Q&A. If something sticks out as being amazing or odd, then I make a mental note. When I chat to a founder I already know all the key questions to ask, and the ones I don’t know organically arise in response to answers
• Share it with anyone other than within the firm
  • If someone sends me a deck it is confidential. If I am helpful and make investor intros, I actually ask for permission.

Also Read: All you need to know about preparing a pitch deck, straight from an early-stage startup investor

Why a founder will get a yes or no after I look at a deck

Understand receiving a deck before a meeting is simply a ‘hack’ to spend more time looking for the next greater thing, or to allocate more time helping our portfolio, which we do a lot of. Therefore a yes or no when you email me a deck is based on a number of factors such as:

• Is your idea good or idiotic. Are you solving a real problem and will you be able to keep solving that problem whilst getting customers to pay you? Does your business have longevity; can you make barriers such as network effects?
• Is your solution awesome, or will it be with our help? Will you beat the competitions’ offers for your targeted market?
• Is your targeted market big enough to get an exit, or take a meaningful position? Will you be able to get a big exit for me to get a multiple?
• Do your team look incredible or at least good enough? If you are doing an enterprise data warehousing solution and none of the team have experience I will pass. If you have Tier 1 company logos for your experience, you get points, etc. Does your team cover all the important divisions (otherwise state you need to hire).
• Do you have thoughts on monetization and are they reasonable? If you aren’t Nielsen and you are going to make money from data, or advertising for that matter, I wont take you seriously
• How much are you raising? Are you too early or big for us to invest?
• What countries are you focussed on and is the timing right? In SEA if you only want to do one country, this doesn’t work unless there are exceptional circumstances.
• What is the competitive landscape like? Can you win and what will it take? If there is a #1 twice as big but they just got bought by a corporate that will mess it up, I am still interested.
• How is the market going to move, and how long? If timing is bad, then I will pass.
• How are you going to get big? Do you know how marketing is going to get you there? Do your unit economics allow you to shrink the market and take a large share, for example?
• For the length of time you have been operating, what traction have you got? Results divided by time matter.

Does how it came to be we are in contact change my view?

There are some arguments for not receiving a deck before a call/meeting in certain scenarios.  Personally, I prefer a standardised process where all potential investments are addressed in a fair and consistent manner. There is a lot of art to investing, so where I can apply even a weak-form science, I think it is advantageous.

Also read: Prepping for an investor pitch? Don’t get blinded by tunnel vision

Whether I get a cold call, referral, met someone at an event or even it is a friend looking for funding, I treat everyone the same. Yes, if friends reach out formally for investment rather than to meet up for advice, I insist on treating them the same way.

If I am sent a nice summary email instead, is that ok?

No. Yes, I would like a summary of the opportunity, in bullet-points, but I want the deck to be in that email.

How I think during a call or meeting is key to this analysis

To understand why I have formed my view (other than time allocation), it is critical to understand how I think and what I am trying to achieve in a dynamic interaction. There are four points here:

• I need enough information to ask the right questions to allow founders to shine and to ensure we end a call on the same page
  • See if you know the industry in and out;
  • See if you are doing the right things, or what additional things you can do and for us to debate them there and then;
  • See how you think about the opportunity;
    • Do you think big enough, are you ambitious?
    • Are our aspirations aligned? If you want to make a $20m business, that’s great, but it generally isn’t for me.
• I need the founder to help direct my thinking and bring up my comprehension (AKA what I can’t Google or don’t have the time to)
  • I expect you know your business better than I do. There is a short period of time for me to get close to sharing your vision;
  • If you can talk me through your competitors’ strategy and positioning I can get certain that there is a good chance of you being #1, which is key.
• Are these guys going to beat everyone? Do I want to win with them?
  • I like to have beer with nice, smart founders, but I want to invest in founders who will win. I want to focus on challenging founders to see how great they are.
  • I only really start to care about whether I like founders and can work with them once they help me get past my ‘crocodile brain’, the ‘fear gatekeeper’. I can focus on rapport then and dreaming of the potential, how I can help them achieve it.
• I want to put you in a box fast to understand the world you are in
  • I read a lot and talk to a lot of people, so I have seen most things before. Putting you in a box, even if it is not the right one, allows me to focus on the differences, by removing the similarity. Pattern recognition is key to being able to understand the nuances, and the devil is in the details. I want time to get into those details, not the basics.

The benefits and considerations of my approach to receiving decks before meetings

Benefits

• Save time
  • Does the startup fit our investment mandate and interests? If not we aren’t going to invest anyway;
  • No wasted meeting if there is an obvious portfolio conflict;
  • I read faster than people talk, so reading a deck before a call means more time spent on the value add bits.
• Avoid uncomfortable situations
  • If founders know I always want a pitch deck, than founders who don’t like sharing decks won’t contact me or will adjust their pitch deck before sending to me. Either way there are no situations I have to say ‘do or don’t, up to you’ which is not a nice thing to do.
• Better outcomes
  • With enough lead time the subconscious processes the opportunity;
  • More productive, focused calls lead to better decisions.
• Ethics
  • Do not have meetings where competitive information will be inappropriately shared (I expect the deck not to be sharing competitive information and founders should already know why we invested in).

Considerations

• Apprehension of entrepreneur to share
  • Founders may not want to share pitch decks and sometimes will ignore request for decks. May miss out on an opportunity, though I think the better founders know that execution matters more than ideas so will be happy to share their pitch deck.
• Missed opportunity to network
  • In many cases it matters more who you know than what you know. It is always great to meet people and exchange ideas, if you have the time.
• Form opinions
  • There is the potential to form inaccurate and damaging opinions of a startup which creative cognitive bias. No one can truly be unbiased and zen when listening to people. Whether reading a pitch deck accentuates this bias is a fair question. If one is too biased you may think that Uber is just another taxi company not solving a particular problem.
• Some people cant write pitch decks, which may mean missed opportunities
  • Tough, you need to sell and the quality of your pitch deck often links to quality of your product. In the Valley there may be a lot of tech only teams who somehow can make a beautiful product but not enunciate their business to VCs, but with my focus, I invest in balanced teams which can communicate not only to consumers but to me.

Conclusion

If you are a founder looking for an investment from me, please respectfully send me a deck before you ask for a meeting. I am open to changing my view, but I have one at present. I think this is the idealised start to a fundraise process.

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The views expressed here are of the author’s, and e27 may not necessarily subscribe to them. e27 invites members from Asia’s tech industry and startup community to share their honest opinions and expert knowledge with our readers. If you are interested in sharing your point of view, submit your post here.

This article was originally published on alexanderjarvis.com.

Image Credit: 123RF

The post Expert tips for crafting an effective pitch deck from a seasoned early stage investor appeared first on e27.

Last week, the Thai online tyre marketplace for vehicle maintenance businesses, WYZauto, announced a US$2.25 million in a pre-Series A investment from Vynn Capital (lead), Vincent Lee (an early investor in Carsome), Oak Drive Ventures, and Kaya Founders. The three-year-old company plans to use the money to build the team and venture into other vehicle parts.

In this interview, WYZauto Founder & CEO Louis Giraud discusses the business, marketing, USP, and more.

Edited excerpts:

How does WYZauto plan to utilise the US$2.25 million raised in the pre-Series A funding round led by Vynn Capital?

Team building. We have proved a lot since we started. It is now time to re-enforce us with great people in order to expand in more markets, product categories and complex customer segments.

Can you elaborate on how WYZauto connects vehicle maintenance businesses with top tyre brands and wholesalers?

We integrate stock, delivery options and operational processes (cut-off time for orders, etc.) of tyre professionals into WYZauto. We have close to 100 wholesalers and 200,000 tyres in stock of more than 70 different brands in both countries, and we can deliver nationwide.

Also Read: WYZauto nets US$2.25M to connect vehicle maintenance businesses with tyre brands in Thailand

What strategies does WYZauto employ to attract vehicle service centres to use its platform, and what benefits do these centres gain from using the WYZauto app?

There is no magic solution here. It is a long and difficult process of convincing sellers to join us to provide the best offer for service centres. In parallel, we visit these centres to present our solution and convince them to join. As far as I am concerned, there is no reason not to use us as we provide with a unique source of information on products they need daily. Having said that, it is always a long journey to change habits.

How does WYZauto differentiate itself from competitors in the market, particularly in terms of its value proposition and offerings?

Actually, there are not many players like us in this part of the world. It is hard to find digital platforms focused on automotive professionals and even harder to find platforms offering a network of sellers. We are really focused on speed of delivery, service quality and streamlining the ordering process. We know both the automotive and tech world and believe we can bring a new service level to this market.

How does WYZauto plan to streamline its maintenance supply chain, especially with its expansion into other vehicle parts?

There is a lot of inefficiency in our industry. Retailers all stock but are not sure they have the right product at the right time and place. While building a digitised network of stock and delivery options, we help them to find a solution if there is a customer need. This will apply to spare parts with a much higher level of complexity, given the number of references existing.

Could you share more details about the expansion into Malaysia and the significance of partnering with Vynn Capital for this expansion?

We launched WYZauto in Malaysia almost one year ago. I wanted to prove that we have the capacity and knowledge to expand into another market as I am convinced about the added value our solution brings.

By growing quickly, we are still at the beginning stage and are eager to work with key market stakeholders to help them in their tyre business and tomorrow’s spare parts. Vynn Capital is from Malaysia and specialises in mobility and supply. I have felt as well a good fit with the team during the fundraising process. I believe they are the right partner to help us to build synergy with their ecosystem and expand our solution.

Can you discuss the impact of WYZauto’s platform on increasing the e-commerce presence of wholesalers and brands in the automotive industry?

Our industry is still very traditional and fragmented. The vast majority of players have no time, money or expertise to invest in a digital platform to ease their lives and the ones of their customers. This is what we bring to them: we invest our time, expertise and resources to digitise their offer and bring a new service to the country we are targeting. We also give them access to large-scale networks requiring nationwide and sometimes complex system integration solutions.

What is your business model? How do you earn revenue?

We earn money out of each transaction. Once we have established ourselves as a significant player in the aftermarket automotive space, we believe we could bring incredible insights through the data and traffic from our platform.

Also Read: No time to have your car serviced? MisterTyre comes to your aid at the tap of a button

With nearly 3,000 vehicle service centres already using the WYZauto app, what are the company’s plans to scale its user base further?

We are only at the beginning. Our user base in Thailand is around 2,500 service centres, which we can triple once we expand to other product categories. In Malaysia, we are getting close to 300 users, which we should increase by at least ten times.

The automotive aftermarket is a big industry, and there are a lot of service centres we can bring value to in each of the countries we identified.

—

X marks Echelon. Join us at Singapore EXPO on May 15-16 for the 10th edition of Asia’s leading tech and startup conference. Enjoy 2 days of building connections with potential investors, partners, and customers, exploring innovation, and sharing insights with 8,000+ key decision-makers of Asia’s tech ecosystem. Get your tickets here.

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The post WYZauto: Aiming to streamline the tyre industry in Southeast Asia appeared first on e27.

Dear reader,

When Storya closed its doors after a two-year journey, the founders were thrust into a whirlwind of emotions, a shared experience among entrepreneurs. Their trajectory swiftly shifted from grand aspirations to the sobering reality of practical constraints. The abrupt transition left them grappling with a sense of loss and uncertainty, a sentiment familiar to many who have poured their hearts into a venture only to see it falter.

In the aftermath of the startup’s demise, CEO Paolo Danese confronted a creative impasse. The intensity of entrepreneurial endeavour had left his creative engines sputtering, leaving him adrift in a sea of doubt and apprehension.

Yet, amidst the desolation, a flicker of hope emerged. He grappled with the question that plagues many in similar circumstances: how do we reignite our creative spark after experiencing the sting of failure? While acknowledging the need for a more grounded approach in future ventures, Danese remained steadfast in the belief that a measure of visionary zeal is indispensable in fuelling innovation and nurturing creativity.

Find out more about the discovery in this contributed post.

Anisa,
Editor.

—-

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After failure, rekindling our creativity and finding balance
Though Storya shut down after two years, it taught us that creativity and balance can be found even after a setback

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Expert tips for crafting an effective pitch deck from a seasoned early stage investor
Pitch decks are a “teaser” that can help you get on the path of investment. Find out what investors think a good pitch deck should cover

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The real estate sector is responsible for nearly 40 per cent of global carbon emissions, the majority of which come from building operations and construction. The industry at large is under mounting pressure to meet increasingly stringent global climate goals. These include significant emission reductions to limit global warming to 1.5˚C above pre-industrial levels, necessitating drastic sector-wide changes.

The push for net-zero emissions by 2050 has led to policies impacting real estate, such as higher carbon prices and tougher building standards, ultimately driving up costs and pushing investors toward more sustainable assets.

But the shift is not just about compliance; it’s a fundamental change in market preferences toward greener, energy-efficient properties. Investors now face the challenge of balancing financial returns with the need for sustainability. 

With offices in Singapore and India, Accacia is an AI-powered B2B SaaS platform that enables large property owners to monitor their carbon footprints in real time. With clients and industry partners such as AECOM, Allianz, Xander, UOB, and several others, Accacia has already been implemented across more than 20 million square feet of real estate in Asia. The company is currently expanding in key markets around the world, including Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and North America.

Accacia’s Co-Founder and CEO Annu Talreja recently sat down with Helen Wong, Managing Partner at AC Ventures, on the Indonesia Digital Deconstructed podcast for a discussion on how to decarbonise the global real estate industry.  

Accacia: A vertical-focused solution

When asked about why there is a global need for tools like Accacia, Talreja explained that real estate is inherently a complex business with many moving parts. As such, it already requires many specialised ERP tools and SaaS solutions. By integrating with existing systems already used by the world’s largest property owners, Accacia helps them do a variety of important things. 

These include measuring Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions from asset operations, assessing and improving building designs for embodied carbon, calculating financed emissions for their investment portfolios, setting net-zero targets, tracking their decarbonisation journeys, and more.  

Talreja shared that the global estimated carbon accounting software market currently stands at US$15 billion and is expected to grow to US$50 billion in a few years. Meanwhile, the green building market is valued at approximately US$25 trillion in developing regions. In developed nations, the market for retrofits (upgrading existing buildings for enhanced energy efficiency and decarbonisation) is somewhere between US$18 trillion and US$20 trillion. 

Also Read: Balancing act: Carbon Balance’s quest to tackle climate crises with tech-driven sustainability

“So, at its core, our product is a carbon emissions tracking platform. But it goes beyond mere tracking to facilitate actual decarbonisation. By doing so, it also opens the door to a vast market of retrofit solutions, advanced technologies, and innovative materials within the real estate industry,” explained Talreja. 

Early clients and key wins

The company’s founding team includes Jagmohan Gaarg, Accacia’s sales lead, who worked with Talreja previously at Oxfordcaps, a tech-enabled student housing business that she built and scaled to US$20 million in annual recurring revenue. Accacia’s Co-Founder and CTO, Piyush Chitkara, was a technical consultant for Oxfordcaps and now comes to the table with senior experience from major tech outfits like Cisco, Rakuten Mobile, and others.

Accacia launched in 2022 and spent the better part of a year experimenting in pursuit of product-market fit. After research and product development, the startup raised its first round of capital in December of that year. The following January, the team began onboarding its first paid clients to the platform. 

Highlighting some large early customers, Talreja said, “Within the first year, we managed to sign some big enterprise clients, including Hines, which has about US$100 billion in AUM. It is one of the top five real estate asset managers globally. We also signed JSW Group, which has more than US$20 billion in AUM and is one of India’s largest conglomerates. As a multinational, they are into all core sectors, including cement, steel, infrastructure, and more.”

Beyond sales, the company has also achieved notable milestones that underscore its growing influence and success. Among these, securing the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB) accreditation stands out as a prominent badge.

Talreja explained, “GRESB is the largest ESG reporting platform for all large real estate companies. Globally, they report via GRESB and rely on its ratings for their ESG rankings. We became the first product company from Asia to get that.” 

The evolving green real estate market

When asked about Accacia’s go-to-market strategy, Talreja said that in Southeast Asia, one key play has been not only looking at local building assets but also targeting local asset managers, many of whom have real estate assets globally.  

She said, “So specifically when it comes to locations in Asia like Singapore, Dubai, or Abu Dhabi, we have some really large asset managers like Temasek GIC, CapitaLand, Keppel, Adia, and others. There are some really large global asset managers here, and that’s why Singapore is a very important market for us.” 

Talreja pointed out the changes in worldwide regulatory practices, specifically mentioning how the Singaporean government recently broadened its regulations. These updated rules now mandate that industries previously viewed as non-essential, such as the real estate sector, must now report their direct and indirect emissions.

Also Read: Startups should work with corporates to achieve balance between social impact, sustainability: Arcadis

“Also, we are seeing a lot of development, especially in more developed geographies in Asia, like Singapore, Japan, and Korea, seeing 10 per cent to 25 per cent rental premiums being drawn in green buildings as opposed to non-green buildings. So in all, both the quickly evolving regulatory landscape as well as the demand from the real estate client perspective has been very encouraging for us.”

A decarbonisation engine

When asked about what Accacia’s key objectives are for the next few years, Talreja explained that the majority of the company’s technical focus will be put toward developing a “decarbonisation planning engine” for clients. 

“We have taken an interesting bottom-up approach in building the decarbonisation engine, which comes from my experience being an asset manager at Marriott,” said Talreja. “So let’s say, for example, you need to optimise your air conditioning. HVAC is one of the largest contributors to carbon emissions in Asia, given the cooling requirements. We have looked at the whole suite of innovative solutions that can help you with HVAC optimisation and created a rule-based engine that can help asset managers clearly come to answers given their type of building, their type of loads, the age of their buildings, what are the best solutions within their budget, and more. For the next year or two, we will focus on making this offering more robust.”

She added that Accacia also aims to fine-tune its sales strategy. Initially, the team’s interactions have predominantly been with direct owners involved in either the construction or operation of buildings. However, Talreja notes a growing interest from financial entities, such as investment banks and other institutions with significant real estate and infrastructure portfolios (think JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, etc). 

“These institutions are increasingly keen on understanding the climate risks associated with their assets, leading to collaborations on climate risk modelling,” she added. “A new module, aimed at assessing climate risk for real estate and infrastructure, is set to launch later in the year.”

Talreja characterised Accacia’s progress in Asia as a successful client acquisition push and plans to sustain momentum with ongoing pilots and a viable pipeline. According to her, the team has also outlined a strategic focus on expanding into North America, aiming to solidify pilot projects with major clients and turn them into lasting partnerships.

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