SimpleAI, a Singapore-based developer of automation agents for accounting and finance teams, has raised a US$5 million seed round and secured a separate US$10 million debt facility earmarked for acquisitions across the Asia-Pacific region — a pivot from organic growth to an acquisition-led strategy for the three-year-old startup.
The seed round follows a US$500,000 pre-seed investment and brings SimpleAI’s total funding to US$15 million. The company said a lead investor has already committed to the seed round as it broadens its investor base, while the debt facility will fund the acquisition of established accounting and fund administration firms that can then be integrated with SimpleAI’s AI agents from day one.
Acquisition strategy targets Singapore and Australia first
SimpleAI is primarily targeting accounting and fund administration firms with annual revenues between US$500,000 and US$5 million, though it remains open to larger deals above US$20 million. The company’s near-term focus is Singapore and Australia, with Hong Kong and Mauritius under consideration for further expansion. It already has more than US$25 million worth of deals under review across Singapore and Australia.
Acquired firms join under what SimpleAI calls a Partner-and-Operator model, continuing to serve existing clients independently while receiving SimpleAI’s technology and operational support. The company said it screens targets on three criteria: strong unit economics, cultural fit, and the ability to embed AI agents into the acquired firm’s workflow.
Founders bet on a post-ChatGPT shift in unstructured data processing
SimpleAI was founded in 2023 by Roger Tan, Shim Youngjun and Bryan Sng, who bring backgrounds spanning private equity, technology leadership and accounting operations across the Asia-Pacific region.
“When OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November 2022, we saw that the barrier to processing unstructured data had finally dropped,” said Bryan Sng, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of SimpleAI. “That was the moment we started sketching out how we could put a large language model to work on this kind of data.”
The company said its deployment process is designed to avoid disrupting acquired businesses: SimpleAI reads a firm’s existing chart of accounts, historical ledgers and current processes as they stand, rather than requiring operational changes upfront. A deterministic accounting module handles calculations while the AI agent suggests actions, and firms can opt into a “plan mode” where an accountant reviews and approves entries before posting.
Regional e-invoicing push and new hire
SimpleAI has also partnered with the Singapore Business Federation and SESAMi in support of the Infocomm Media Development Authority’s InvoiceNow initiative, extending its automation agents to help small and medium enterprises adopt e-invoicing as part of Singapore’s national digital financial infrastructure push.
“As an AI-native company, our M&A facility lets us acquire businesses where we can deploy our agents into the workflow immediately,” said Roger Tan, Founder and CEO of SimpleAI. “We are being disciplined and will only move forward when the economics, talent, and cultural fit are right.”
Alongside the funding news, SimpleAI named Otto Von Domingo as Chief Revenue Officer. Von Domingo has more than 20 years of leadership experience in private markets and corporate services, and previously helped grow Vistra’s funds business fivefold over three years across Singapore and the wider Asia-Pacific region — a hire the company said supports its focus on fund and special purpose vehicle accounting central to its acquisition strategy.
SimpleAI said it plans to expand into Hong Kong, Mauritius and Europe, and is targeting a public-market exit, including a possible IPO, within the next 24 months. The company says it is deployed across more than 10 markets, supports over 1,500 entities and 2,000 users across 18-plus industries, and is an official app partner of Xero and Intuit QuickBooks.
