True Global Ventures invests $3m in SG document management startup

Singapore-based Dedoco, a blockchain-based document management platform, has raised US$3 million from True Global Ventures 4 Plus Fund.

Dedoco CTO Ernie Teo (left) and CEO Daphne Ng / Photo credit: Dedoco

This investment pushes Dedoco’s total capital raised to US$7.5 million to date. The company secured US$2.5 million in a seed funding round led by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia in July last year.

Crossing borders

Following the fundraise, Dedoco is looking to enter new markets, including the US, this year. It already has a presence in Australia, Malaysia, and Thailand in addition to Singapore.

“We are dividing this into three main segments – Singapore and SEA, Australia, and the US. We started from Singapore in 2020, and we are definitely looking at progressively anchoring our position at home base,” Daphne Ng, co-founder and CEO of Dedoco, told Tech In Asia.

Ng asserted that the biggest challenge for its international expansion will be developing a deep understanding of these new markets. “There are nuances in each market that are important for B2B solutions like ours,” she said.

To address this, the firm will be paying close attention to finding the right team members, as this would enable it to potentially cut short on its learning curve and optimize investment spending on “the correct go-to-market strategy in each market,” Ng added.

The company is also aiming to grow its client base by up to 4x by the end of 2022. It currently serves over 200 enterprises including government organizations, banks, professional services, financial institutions, and real estate companies.

Beyond word-of-mouth

While not yet profitable, Dedoco shared that it is still investing in its growth phase for “at least the next three years.”

“Having said that, B2B SaaS secures loyalty and sustains recurring revenue as long as we continue to deliver our value,” said Ng.

The firm intends to invest more in marketing and branding efforts this year to drive further traction, which has been mainly driven by word-of-mouth referrals so far.

Founded in 2020 by Ng and Ernie Teo, Dedoco takes a decentralized approach to document management that allows users to manage their documents on-premise, which means increased data privacy and document security. With documents verified through blockchain, companies transitioning to Web3 are also supported.