ZOLO, an AI-powered B2B software company founded by two alums from two Singapore universities, has secured an undisclosed pre-seed investment from student-led VC fund Protégé Ventures.
Founded in 2023, ZOLO is designed to simplify orders, payments and deliveries for food suppliers.
Also Read: F&B spending in SEA is back to pre-pandemic levels: Report
In response to the growing trend of restaurants utilising messaging apps like WhatsApp for B2B orders with food suppliers, ZOLO first starts with addressing the challenges posed by text-based orders for food suppliers, which are time-consuming and error-prone (e.g., spelling mistakes, language variations, incorrect interpretation of acronyms). The solution integrates WhatsApp order details, transforming unstructured text messages into structured purchase orders and incorporating them into back-office enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. The three-layer AI technology helps suppliers reduce errors, save time, and minimise cost and wastage associated with inefficiencies of manual order processing.
With the solution, suppliers can easily automate and streamline their orders from WhatsApp to ERP in seconds.
ZOLO’s other investors include Antler, GHARAGE and NTUitive.
Protégé Ventures was established in 2017 by the Singapore Management University’s (SMU) Institute of Innovation & Entrepreneurship (IIE) with an earlier partnership with Kairos ASEAN, Wavemakers Partners, and Dr Jeffrey Chi of Vickers Venture Partners.
In the seven years since its inception, Protégé Ventures has trained 320 students as VC professionals, evaluated over 1,300 deals and invested US$221,000 in 11 student startups. These startups have collectively raised over USS$26 million from notable institutional investors to date.
Also Read: Fixing food waste problem means less hungry people and a great economy
The ZOLO investment is the 11th student-founded startup Protégé Ventures has funded since 2017. This marks the conclusion of Protégé Ventures (PV) Fund I, which has made a total of 11 strategic investments since its inception in 2017. Its other portfolio firms include Lumitics, an IoT food waste management solution; Hypotenuse AI, an AI-content writer startup; Intellect, a mental health care app; and Angie’s Tempeh, a plant-based protein products manufacturer.
Protégé launched PV Fund II valued at S$500,000 in September 2023, which was contributed by founding managing partner David Su of Matrix Partners China. This empowers more investments in early-stage technology startups founded by students or recent graduates of Singapore’s polytechnics and universities seeking pre-seed-to-seed funding.
—
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.
Want more from your Echelon experience? Be an Echelon X sponsor or exhibitor. Send enquiry here.
The post Protégé Ventures backs food order, delivery automation startup ZOLO appeared first on e27.