A restaurant owner sits in their office at the end of a 12-hour shift. Stock is low. They don’t open a procurement portal or log into an ERP, they just open WhatsApp.
"5 bags of flour, 80kg chicken (thighs only pls!!), please deliver tomorrow."
It’s 11:05 PM. Having just finished the kitchen cleanup and a final stock check, they fire off this message to their supplier through Whatsapp before finally heading home.
The order is real, but the data is "dead."
On the supplier’s end, a team of coordinators spends hours retyping these "messy" messages into spreadsheets. In the supplier's world, this "manual matching item name in text to actual item at accounting system" eats up to 20% of operational time and leads to a 3-5% error rate in order fulfillment. When you’re moving millions in perishable goods, those errors are expensive.
The 3-Year Obsession
Founders Anthony See and Jason Hor have been obsessed with this "messy data" problem for years. Anthony previously scaled an F&B tech business across six countries; Jason was building the F&B POS systems they relied on.
In 2024, they thought they had the answer: they built a mobile app for suppliers so their customers could order directly.
It didn't fly.
"We learned the hard way that you can’t fight human behavior," says Anthony.
"No retailer or restaurant owner wants to install 20 different mobile apps to order from 20 different suppliers. They want fast and simple and that means staying in WhatsApp or email. We had the right vision, but the technology wasn't ready to meet them where they already were."
The breakthrough: AI where work happens
Three years later, the world has caught up. Large Language Models (LLMs) can now "read" intent in a messy voice note or a blurry photo better than a human can.
Anthony and Jason didn't build a new app this time.
They built FlowGo, an AI agent that lives inside the tools businesses already use: WhatsApp and Email.
- Zero Change Management: The customer types a message; FlowGo automatically structures that data and injects it directly into the supplier's ERP (like SAP or Xero).
- Invisible Automation: It reconciles invoices, flags price discrepancies, and triggers payments without a single human retyping a line of text.
From linear growth to exponential scale
Initially, FlowGo sold directly to SMEs, a slow, one-by-one grind.
Then came the "Eureka" moment: The Platform Pivot.
Instead of chasing individual businesses, FlowGo now partners with the platforms where trade already happens. By integrating with Food Market Hub & Pracbiz, FlowGo was instantly dropped into the workflows of thousands of suppliers across Southeast Asia.
The result? Conversations that used to take months to unlock now happen in days. FlowGo isn't just a tool; it’s becoming the intelligent connective tissue for the $12 Trillion B2B global trade market that is still stuck in chat apps.
The vision
Order entry is just the "Trojan Horse." Once FlowGo captures the transaction at the source, it becomes the layer for real-time credit, automated payments, and predictive inventory.
Anthony and Jason have spent a decade in the trenches of supply chain friction. They’ve seen the problem, and now they have the technology & industry knowledge to finally help SME achieve automation they want at affordable cost.
The ask
FlowGo is looking to partner with platforms and networks that work closely with SMEs across procurement, marketplaces, payments, and retail systems.
If you’re building in that space, or know someone who is, reach out at founders@flowgoai.com
Watch them pitch at Demo Day
When: Thursday, 30 April @ 7:00 PM (pre-party starting at 5 PM)
Where: Carriageworks (at the close of Blackbird's Sunrise Festival)
What: Pitch night (19 companies)
Tickets: Grab your ticket here
