Toku Limited IPO (SGX: Catalist) — A Cloud & AI CX Play for APAC

This blogpost is generated by ChatGPT with edits from Mr. IPO (let's see if this LLM actually works)

Toku Limited IPO – Growth Story with Execution Risk

Toku Limited is launching its IPO on the SGX Catalist board at an offer price of S$0.25 per share, valuing the company at approximately S$142.6 million post-listing. The offer consists of 65 million shares, of which only 2 million shares are available to the public, with the rest placed out to institutional and accredited investors. The IPO will close on 20 Jan noon and start trading on 22 Jan 9am.

Toku positions itself as an AI-powered, cloud-native customer experience (CX) platform, serving enterprise customers across voice, messaging, chat and omnichannel communications, with a strong focus on APAC and other complex markets. If you want to know more about the business model, you can watch the video on the website. The business is similar to Twilio or Message Bird. There is only an interesting article behind paywall of the Edge, where it aims to be the Salesforce of customer experience software.

What I Like About This IPO

1. Attractive sector with structural tailwinds
Toku operates in the cloud communications and AI-enabled CX space — a segment benefiting from long-term trends such as digitalisation, automation, and enterprise migration to cloud platforms. Demand for omnichannel customer engagement tools is unlikely to reverse.

2. APAC-first positioning and LATAM expansion
Unlike many Western competitors that adapt global solutions for Asia, Toku positions itself as purpose-built for fragmented, regulation-heavy markets. This APAC focus could be a real differentiator if executed well. Twilio is US-based and listed on NASDAQ whereas Message Bird is based in Europe and still privately held. It is heartening to see an Asian champion based out of Singapore and expanding into 15 LATAM markets! 

3. Revenue growth is visible
Revenue has grown steadily over the last three financial years, increasing from roughly US$21.6m (FY2022) to US$31.8m (FY2024). While growth has moderated, it remains respectable for an enterprise-focused platform. Well known customers included Go Jek, Lenskart, and Foodpanda.

4. Reasonable IPO valuation (not cheap, not crazy)
At the IPO price, Toku is valued at about 3.3× FY2024 sales, which is broadly in line with global CPaaS peers and lower than many profitable SaaS names.   

5. Ambitious CEO / high quality private and public shareholders
The CEO seemed pretty ambitious citing Catalist as the initial step, moving to mainboard in a few years and eventually heading to the US. In the interview, the CEO also cited that the IPO is not an exit for backers. In addition, the company has been able to attract high quality anchors such as Lion Global, Amova (previously Nikko Asset Management) and Ginko-AGT Global Growth Fund to participate in the IPO. Known local investors included Asdew Acquisitions (Alan Wang), Han Seng Juan (Centurion) and ICH Sunergrowth Fund

Financial Performance Snapshot

• Revenue: Growing, but not hyper-growth

• Gross margins: Improving year-on-year

• Profitability: Still loss-making

• Operating cash flow: Negative

• Balance sheet: Negative working capital disclosed

This is clearly a growth-stage tech company, not a mature cash-generating one.

IPO Valuation at a Glance

• IPO price: S$0.25

• Market capitalisation: ~S$142.6m

• FY2024 revenue: ~S$43m (converted)

• Price-to-Sales: ~3.3×

Substantial Shareholders & Investors 

One positive aspect of this IPO is the quality and diversity of its pre-IPO and IPO investors, which lends credibility to the deal. The CEO Thomas Laboulle owns around 4.72% while large shareholders include Delivery Hero Ventures (18.51%) that owns FoodPanda, Paris-based Nepture Invest Asia owns 14.39%, Singapore based Tembusu Partners owned 7.08%, 

Other Key Substantial Shareholders / Investors

• Lim Hwee Hua
  Non-Independent Non-Executive Chairperson of Toku. Her husband is Andy, the owner of Tembusu Partners, who participated in this Company as a pre-IPO investor.

• Lion Global Investors
  One of Singapore's best-known institutional fund managers, participating on behalf of managed funds.

• Amova Asset Management Asia
  A regional asset manager with a growth-oriented investment focus.

• Ginko-AGT Global Growth Fund
  A thematic growth fund, suggesting interest beyond purely domestic capital.

Pre-IPO / Strategic Investors Rolling Forward

• Asdew Acquisitions Pte Ltd

• ICH Synergrowth Fund

• Han Seng Juan

This mix of institutional, strategic, and individual investors suggests the IPO is not purely promoter-driven and that external capital has done some level of diligence, where they may have more information about the future growth and prospects of the Company.

What I Am Concerned About  

1. Competitive industry x AI disruption

In the grand scheme of things, the Company is frankly very small when compared against global peers in terms of market cap and revenue. While the Company has grown rapidly, the business itself can be subject to disruption by new entrants and AI technology. In other words, I don't know what I don't know. 

2. Very small public tranche

Only 2 million shares are offered to the public. This means that you are unlikely to get a lot of shares via the ATM, making it hard to "punt". 

3. Still loss-making
Rightly so, if the Company is still expanding aggressively overseas. While the Company strives for profitability, this may come at the expense of growth.  The company has yet to demonstrate a clear path to profitability. Investors are betting on margin expansion and scale. 

Fair Value

Assuming 1H 2025 revenue of $16.6m doubled to a full year revenue of US$33.2m. That translates into SGD 33.2m x 1.29 = SGD 42.828m. Since we are now in 2026, assuming revenue grows by another 15% after IPO and the exchange rate remains the same, the revenue will be 1.15 x SGD 42.828m = SGD 49.25m. A price to revenue ratio of 3.3x will translate into $162.53m. This implies a fair value of around $0.285 cents. 

Overall Thoughts. My Verdict – 🌶🌶🌶 (3 Chillies)

My head says two but my heart says 3.  I understand from sources close to the issuance that this IPO is pretty hot. I was allocated 30% of what I asked for.

Given this is the first IPO of 2026, I want the local market to gallop to a strong start. You can read an interesting article from e27 here. If this IPO that checks all the boxes from revenue growth to strong investor base and tailwind from the MAS efforts to revive the local market cannot make it, then it will be quite challenging for the rest of the start ups. I think everyone is invested in making it a successful debut. Anything below a 10% debut will be disappointing but of course, you have this article from the edge to back you up on why it may not be a bad thing.  

Do note that Mr. IPO is vested so you can treat this as a biased rating.