Thailand-based automatic data entry service platform ZTRUS, which plans to raise Series A funding this year, aims to scale further in its home country and explore expansion regionally after breaking even last year, its chief executive said.
“Our profit/loss is at par in 2021. We hope to double the [revenue] figure in 2022 as we are launching new software-as-a-service (SaaS) products and expanding with partners,” Panachit Kittipanya-ngam, who is also ZTRUS Co-Founder, told TechNode Global in an interview. “We hope to scale in Thailand within two years and shall explore some clients in Southeast Asia.”
According to him, the company already has some successes in project delivery in 2021 for government sectors, global insurance companies, large trading companies and leading accounting firms.
“In 2022, we are launching SaaS products focusing on invoice-like documents and government documents for government sectors, insurance, accounting firms and trading business,” he added.
“We could scale these workflows with our technology in Thailand and Southeast Asia. The challenges are the speed of customization in client workflows and the speed of learning cognitive logics from foreign documents,” he shared.
ZTRUS (Accomate co., ltd) provides automatic data entry services with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and AI-based cognitive templates designed for various types of documents. In April 2020, NVEST Venture which manages PE fund of Government Saving Bank (GSB) and Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET), invested in ZTRUS’ Seed stage.
Panachik said ZTRUS is in the midst to raise its Series A funding round. “We have opened convertible round for Series A. Now we are raising $1.67 millon,” he said, adding that the startup is looking at $10 million post-money valuation.
“We are in talks and looking for lead investor. [We] talked to some foreign VCs as well but all of the committed investors now are local,” he said, adding that existing investor NVEST may follow on.
ZTRUS plans to use the fund raised to improve its services and scale its services.
“We are developing our system to handle more complex documents for logistic documents and lab test results for certificates of analysis. We plan to make our technology “off-the-shelf” such as learning and customizing faster with small set of data,” he added.
In the interview, Panachik also shared his views on the startup and VC ecosystem in Thailand. He also gave suggestions on how to improve the ecosystem.
Below is the edited excerpt of the interview:
We would like to know more about ZTRUS’ plans for 2022. Is there any plan to expand into other markets? which markets and why? Would you be launching any new products?
We have some successes in project delivery in 2021 for government sectors, global insurance companies, large trading companies and leading accounting firms. In 2022, we are launching SaaS products focusing on invoice-like documents and government documents for government sectors, insurance, accounting firms and trading business.
ZTRUS is not limiting itself to only invoicing and accounting industries but working with partners to expand use cases to various industries such as retails, e-commerce, insurance, banking, finance, education, government and legal documents. How is the response so far? Is there any industries ZTRUS prioritizes?
Both partners and clients are happy with our solutions. Our partners are specialized in documents workflows in Document Management System (DMS) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). So far, We have saved more than 50 percent in labor cost and double the speed of their workflows.
Would like to know which stage ZTRUS is in? How soon would you need to raise funds?
We are raising Series A this year.
We noticed the company is generating revenue already. Would you be able to share some figures? Any revenue growth target for this year? any longer-term targets?
Our profit/loss is at par [breakeven] in 2021. We hope to double the [revenue] figure in 2022 as we are launching new SaaS products and expanding with partners. We hope to scale in Thailand within two years and shall explore some clients in Southeast Asia.
What are the opportunities and challenges ZTRUS sees?
We have seen opportunities as we could scale these [companies’ documentation] workflows with our technology in Thailand and Southeast Asia. The challenges are the speed of customization in client workflows and the speed of learning cognitive logics from foreign documents.
How is the overall startup and VC ecosystem in Thailand? What’s more could be done to improve the ecosystem?
In the last couple of years, many mature startups have been acquired and invested in Series B and C. This is a good sign for the ecosystem but we are lacking newcomers in the early stages and we are running out of tech-related people such as developers, project managers, and tech-business developers. We have to find a way to improve our country and expand founders’ networks to international networks.