On how different the fundraising landscape is now compared to Seedly days, Chew says, “Most investors today focus on business models that can generate money from day one. It has to be sustainable. With Seedly, it was the kind of business where we weren’t going to earn back money. So we focused on getting more users and investors were okay with that.”

Eyeing the larger US market, where there is also a stronger interest in longevity, Mito Health participated in the startup accelerator Y Combinator programme in San Francisco from July to September 2024. 

Chew shares more about starting and exiting from Seedly and his advice for early-stage entrepreneurs.

Read more: Why running a startup is like playing 3-D chess, says Reach52’s Edward Booty

What led to your decision to exit Seedly? 

Chew Tee-Ming (TM): We got acquired twice: the first time was by ShopBack three years into the business and the second time by Compare Asia Group, now known as MoneyHero Group. After the second acquisition, I went to Switzerland for a holiday with my wife and I remember thinking, “Do I want to work on Seedly forever?” The answer became clear to me. As long as our team was being taken care of and the company mission lived on, I was okay to leave.

I also realised after working on Seedly for seven years that the mission was meaningful, but it was going to be a Singapore-only business. While I didn’t know what I was going to do next, I knew if I stayed on, I would get too comfortable. So it was largely because of personal aspirations.

How did you and Kenneth first meet?

TM: We met when I was in Silicon Valley for the National University of Singapore (NUS) Overseas Colleges programme. A university senior was asking around if anyone could host this guy coming to visit and I offered to house him in my spare room. We bonded and talked about startups a lot, and he told me how he was closing down the wire-charging business he was running at the time. 

How did that lead to starting Seedly?

TM: When we returned to Singapore, we applied for an NUS grant, which gave us S$10,000 to develop an expense tracker. We later got S$80,000 in investments from East Ventures, after a 15-minute meeting with its founding partner Willson Cuaca. We were shocked that he would invest in us because we were students, but that locked us in. 

How should early-stage founders approach the fundraising process?

TM: The pre-product phase will be challenging if you don’t have any previous record of starting a company. In this phase, ensure your team is solid and that you are the right people to address the problem you’re looking to solve.

Post-product, if you have traction, it’s easier to convince the necessary investors. If you don’t have good traction, you need to be able to convince investors how you plan to correct your strategy and what you’ve learned from the current strategy.  

For us, we don’t just want investors with a lot of money and nothing else to offer. Before we launched Mito Health, we looked for investors with connections. Since launching, we’ve been focusing on expansion, so we want investors with overseas experience who can help bring us into our next market.

See more Gen.T Leaders of Tomorrow from Singapore.

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