Azendian’s big push to get buildings in Singapore and abroad to go green

ABOUT a decade ago, Bill Lee left the relative comfort of a senior position at one of the Big Four accounting firms to be an entrepreneur and develop a startup.

By his admission, these nine years or so as the founder and chief executive officer of Azendian Solutions – a Singapore-based data science and operations technology company – have been the most challenging and yet most rewarding of his career so far.

“About a third of my working life has been at this startup, this SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) that I’ve built. Being an entrepreneur has been the hardest work I’ve done professionally,” he tells The Business Times at the company’s headquarters on the BCA Braddell Campus.

Azendian, which recently welcomed former Trafigura CEO Tan Chin Hwee as its non-executive chairman, was established in 2015. Having previously served educational institutions, it now serves clients in the built environment sector, making use of data science and artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance energy efficiency and resource productivity.

In 2020, Azendian was a finalist of the Emerging Enterprise Awards, which recognise Singapore businesses that are under 10 years old and have an annual turnover of up to S$20 million.

Outside Singapore, the company has operations in Malaysia, Australia, Japan and Vietnam. Its largest shareholders are Seeds Capital and ST Engineering Ventures. In 2018, the latter invested S$4 million for a minority interest. Its other investors include Heritas Capital, private equity investor Soroti and Japanese software firm WingArc1st.

Before starting Azendian, Lee was a partner at EY, leading its South-east Asia data and analytics practice. He previously held senior positions at Arthur Andersen Business Consulting, BearingPoint Consulting and SAS.

In this interview, he explains why he is a firm believer that the effective application of AI and data science will enable organisations big and small to achieve their sustainability, ESG and productivity goals. This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.

In a nutshell, what are Azendian’s focus areas and core business?

We are a company that is focused on sustainability and ESG, bringing our software and solutions to clients in the built environment sector. Hospitals, shopping malls, office towers, hotels, industrial buildings and manufacturing plants – we provide owners of these assets with the capability to monitor and measure their energy and water usage in real time.

Our solution sits in the cloud, so a client’s assets can be anywhere in the world. The system can retrieve data from the building and upload it to the cloud; we can then run a simulation and update the system.

Some clients own multiple assets in Singapore and overseas, and they are able to manage everything remotely and set their equipment to function at the most optimal level.

Why did you decide to move away from serving institutions in the education sector?

For the first few years, a local university as well as the five polytechnics were all using our software. Our solution’s modules included one that could predict a student’s performance during graduation at the point of matriculation, and throughout the student’s time at the institution.

But the cost of growing and maintaining that business was very high. The skills needed, such as a data scientist’s, were of a much higher level and more expensive. They also required a longer engagement runway.

With limited resources, we decided that we could not grow two business lines. In January 2024, we completed the divestment of the education business to ST Engineering. Our board and I agree that Azendian, being a relatively small company, has to work with limited funds.

We sharpened our focus on the energy-efficiency business, which needs less financial resources. We see many opportunities in the built environment sector, as we are talking about helping organisations reduce their energy usage yet not compromise on their outcomes. In that way, their utility bills are lower, and so is their carbon footprint.

Who are some of your major clients?

Over the years, we have undertaken a number of sizeable projects including commercial buildings, malls and district cooling plants for customers such as Keppel, ST Engineering, Sunway (from Malaysia), several Singapore government agencies and one of Singapore’s top universities.

We recently signed an agreement with the Singapore Trade Data Exchange to accelerate the journey of integration of operation technology and information technology, and help more Singapore companies to go green.

How are you growing the business overseas?

Today, more than 85 buildings in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Japan and Vietnam use our solutions. Around 90 per cent of those are in Singapore, because this is our home base after all. But that also means there are many opportunities for us to grow outside.

Singapore has about 600 buildings while Australia has about 8,000. Tokyo alone has more than 8,000 buildings, so we expect the overseas contributions to outperform those from Singapore in the years to come.

We have reseller partners all over the region. In Malaysia, for instance, Sunway started off as one of our customers and they liked our solution enough that they are now our reseller for that market.

In Australia, we have a reseller partner, Oberix, that is one of the largest suppliers of technology and facility management in Australia and New Zealand.

In an earlier BT interview in 2020, you talked about the possibility of listing. Is this still a goal?

We completed a Series A Plus round in June 2024 with new investors Seeds, former Trafigura CEO Tan and Heritas Capital. We expect our Series B round to complete within the next few months, maybe by March or April. We want to improve our solutions and be in a position where we can expand into other markets in South-east Asia, such as Indonesia and Thailand.

As for an IPO (initial public offering), it is always still on our radar. I would say doing so within the next three to five years is realistic.