Catalist-listed Toku makes enterprise AI push as it pursues growth over near-term profit

[SINGAPORE] When customer experience platform Toku – which helps companies manage customer interactions across channels – was set up in 2018, it was less a single flash of inspiration than the culmination of several observations over time.

Its founder, Thomas Laboulle, a Belgium-born Singapore-based entrepreneur whose company was the first to complete an initial public offering on the Singapore Exchange this year, drew on his experience consulting across industries.

In that role, he saw companies struggle with fragmented customer data and disconnected systems that made it difficult to manage interactions in real time.

“I was amazed by how siloed everything was,” said the Toku CEO.

To address this, Laboulle set out to build a company that could unify these systems and streamline customer interactions.

“When I explain how I came to start the company, there was no eureka moment,” he added. “It was a compounding of experiences that suddenly made an opportunity viable.”

He also observed that while advances in technology could simplify parts of the value chain, incumbents were often slow to respond, as they remained tied to legacy systems and ways of operating.

At the same time, Laboulle identified a gap in Asia’s enterprise market. When he arrived about 12 years ago, he was “quite surprised that there weren’t many native solutions”, with most offerings imported from the US or Europe and not tailored to local needs.

“When you looked at areas like complexity, compliance and regulation, it became clear that enterprises didn’t have many suitable options,” he said. “The timing was right, the market was right, the technology was ready – and that’s when I decided to take a shot.”

From fragmentation to integration

Today, the Catalist-listed company integrates telecommunications, messaging and artificial intelligence into a single platform, allowing businesses to manage customer interactions across channels in real time.

By consolidating customer data and communication history, and connecting to companies’ existing systems, it enables organisations to coordinate interactions across support, operations, sales and marketing. This gives teams clearer context and reduces the need for customers to repeat information.

Toku currently operates in more than 30 countries across Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Middle East, with customers including foodpanda, Gojek and Lenskart.

AI is a core feature, although its role is often less about replacing human agents than improving how they work.

Laboulle noted that demand for such capabilities is increasingly driven by clients, with AI features now appearing in almost all tenders the company participates in.

Rather than focusing immediately on customer-facing automation, he said companies are first using AI to streamline backend processes – such as generating summaries, categorising interactions and surfacing insights in real time.

“There is a huge difference between manual record-keeping and a system where note-taking happens automatically…The agent is no longer in charge of producing the summary, but to review and improve it,” he noted.

This has led to productivity gains of at least 30 per cent for some clients.

Beyond automation, AI is also used to surface insights. One example is sentiment analysis, where the tech evaluates factors such as word choice, tone and speech patterns to detect when a customer’s experience is deteriorating.

This helps surface issues “that might not necessarily be noticed, especially by more junior team members”, noted Laboulle, adding that tracking how sentiment evolves helps assess whether issues have been resolved.

Overcoming procurement hurdles

Laboulle admits that one challenge is convincing procurement teams to take a chance on a lesser-known provider, with many facing a “mental block” over having to justify their choice internally.

Early wins came through persistence and demonstration. “It was really about making sure that we got in the room, that we kept chasing the prospect, that we also delivered a lot of initial value,” he said.

Over time, the company also leaned on its ability to meet regulatory and data localisation requirements – particularly in Asia – while building a track record that helped ease concerns among risk-averse buyers.

Its Jan 22 Catalist debut has also strengthened its credibility.

Said Laboulle: “It’s not any company that can go through a listing process.”

This growing traction is reflected in its financial performance, although the company remains in an investment-heavy phase.

Revenue rose 9.3 per cent in FY2025 to US$34.8 million, driven by higher usage and platform adoption.

However, it remains loss-making, with net loss widening to US$9.1 million, largely due to IPO-related and non-cash items. Even excluding these, it would still have recorded a loss.

“Building an enterprise software vendor requires a lot of investment,” said Laboulle, adding that the company is prioritising growth over near-term profitability.

He pointed to expansion into Latin America and the Middle East last year as key drivers of that strategy.

“We could have passed on the opportunities in Latam (Latin America) and Mena (Middle East and North Africa), but I think that for our ambitions, it would have been a mistake,” he pointed out.

The aim, the CEO added, is to build sufficient scale across markets and clients while balancing growth with the path to profitability.

“Once you reach scale, growth can become exponential,” he said, pointing to the platform’s ability to drive higher usage and revenue as it expands across markets.

While he declined to provide a timeline for profitability, Laboulle said that it remains essential for procurement confidence, investor support and long-term sustainability.

For now, the focus is on executing its expansion plans and growing its customer base as demand for enterprise AI accelerates.

“There is a window of opportunity… everything is coming together from a market and technology perspective. We are in the right industry, so the timing is excellent for us, especially with AI,” he felt.

Looking ahead, Laboulle hopes that Toku will become synonymous with customer experience in Asia. “If people think of customer experience and immediately think of Toku, that would be one measure of success.”