🤖 AI for SMEs (What Works, What Doesn't)

It's 10pm and you're answering the same WhatsApp question you already answered 4 times today. The quotes are waiting. The invoices get keyed in one at a time at month end, same as last month. Everyone keeps telling you AI will change your business. Maybe you tried it, got a few clever answers, and went back to the old way. Nobody tells you which part actually works, or what it costs to find out. 🚀 So this one's about AI, unfiltered. We've brought in 2 founders who've put AI into real businesses — swim schools, a 95-year-old packaging shop, clinics, accounting firms. They'll be honest about what stuck, what got switched off after a month, and the mistakes they made getting there. Leonard Loo works on the customer side: enquiries, quotes, follow-ups. He started FormSG in government, and has since built hundreds of AI agents for SMEs. He grew up expecting to take over his parents' seafood restaurant chain; they sold it when he was 14. Bryan Sng works on the back office: invoices, reconciliation, month-end close. His company SimpleAI raised US$15M this year and won Xero's Asia Small Business App of the Year. He's spent the past year on what AI is doing to that work, and to the people who do it. It's a room of founders and business owners. Bring the questions you've been wanting to ask about putting AI in your business. 🍽️ Dinner's on us. Agenda 6:30pm — Registration + dinner + networking 7:00pm — Intro + Panel Sharing 🧠 8:00pm — Audience Q&A 8:15pm — Open mic + networking 9:00pm — End 🔥 Meet Our Speakers Leonard Loo (Co-Founder & CEO @ Voltade) Before Voltade, Leonard was at Open Government Products in GovTech, where he started FormSG. Since ChatGPT launched he's built hundreds of AI agents for SMEs, handling enquiries, quotations and follow-ups over WhatsApp and email. Voltade is accredited by IMDA. He's watched a swim school go from 2-hour replies to instant and add 50 new students a week, and a 95-year-old packaging manufacturer cut quote turnaround by 60%. Bryan Sng (Co-Founder & COO @ SimpleAI) Bryan co-founded SimpleAI about 3 years ago, right after ChatGPT landed, to see whether software could read a messy invoice the way a person does. Since then he's worked with 200+ accounting firms on invoices, bills, bank statements and month-end close. Xero named what they built Asia Small Business App of the Year this year. In July they raised US$5M in seed funding and secured a US$10M debt facility, and are using it to buy accounting firms across Asia Pacific and run their own software inside them. He'll also take on the harder question: what happens to the staff who do that work today. ## Community Partners Lorong AI If you want more of this after tonight, Lorong AI runs it all year. It's a hub that brings government, industry and research together to build Singapore's AI ecosystem, with a community of AI practitioners and more than 200 events a year → See what's on at Lorong AI Singapore Global Network (SGN) SGN is a 250,000-strong community of changemakers, professionals and friends across 175 countries. Born out of a desire to build meaningful relationships across borders, SGN exists to connect people to opportunities that Singapore and its network of members have to offer. Whether you’re a Singaporean chasing your dreams overseas, or someone interested in learning more about lift in Singapore, join the global community to make connections that move you forward. [Learn more] 🚀 About The Runway Ventures The Runway Ventures is a weekly newsletter that helps founders and operators get sharper by learning from other people's mistakes. Every Sunday you get 1 failed startup story, 2 mistakes, and 3 lessons you can actually use, all for free. We've broken down the ones everyone still talks about: Style Theory, eFishery, TaniHub, Kaodim, Fusionex, Privé, and Oriente. Today 80,000+ founders, operators, and investors across Southeast Asia follow us. We also run Beyond Runway, a private, vetted community of founders doing $100K–$20M a year, so you stop making $1M decisions alone. Every month: a handpicked warm intro in your inbox, and a seat at a curated dinner (6 founders, 1 table, 1 topic) — We call it Circle. It's the heart of Beyond Runway.