Portfolio

Built before Mandu.

Before Mandu Partners, we founded, scaled and sold companies across Asia and North America. This is that record, and what it brings to the next deal.

Exits

Three companies built and sold.

ExitedFintech · Philippines · Founded 2018

TendoPay

Payroll-enabled financial services for Filipino employees. 0% purchase loans, emergency cash loans, a virtual card and rewards, all delivered through their employer.

tendopay.ph · archived 2022

Partner role: Tim Grassin, Co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer
Scale reached: 200+ employer partners, 500+ merchant brands, $5M ARR
Backing: Seed round led by Iterative
Outcome: Acquired by Tonik, parent of Tonik Digital Bank. Announced December 2022.

What carries over

Selling through employers instead of one customer at a time. Running credit operations in an emerging market. Taking a Southeast Asian company from idea to a sale to a strategic buyer.

ExitedAd production · Canada · Founded 2013

Candy Banners

Digital ad production studio in Toronto. HTML5, rich media and dynamic banners, video animation and social creative, built for agencies and brands.

candybanners.com · archived 2020

Partner role: Tim Grassin, Co-founder and CEO
Outcome: Acquired by Native Touch

What carries over

A production business run on process, pricing and repeat clients. The same discipline turns an owner-dependent service company into one that runs without its founder. It is also why we produce ad creative in-house.

ExitedDesign agency · Canada · Founded 2010

Stinson Design

Presentation design agency in Toronto. PowerPoint and Keynote design, template systems, storyboarding and communication strategy for corporate teams.

stinsondesign.com

Partner role: Tim Grassin, Founder and CEO
Outcome: Acquired

What carries over

A first company built from zero and sold. Winning corporate buyers, managing a creative team, and making a service business transferable to a new owner.

Built and operating

Built, and still building.

The partners still operate. What we install in an acquired business is what we use in our own.

kubegrade.com · product

OperatingAI infrastructure · Singapore · 2024

Kubegrade

AI agents that automate Kubernetes day-2 operations for enterprise platform teams: upgrades, troubleshooting, drift detection and remediation. Angel-backed.

Tim Grassin, Co-founder and CEO · Caleb Fornari, Co-founder and CTO

What carries over

The partners already build together. The product is the thesis in miniature: AI agents taking over repetitive operational work.

startopsgroup.com

BuiltDevOps services · USA

StartOps Group

DevOps as a Service for small and mid-sized software companies. Cloud automation, containerisation and configuration management across AWS, Google Cloud and Azure.

Caleb Fornari, Founder and CTO for a decade. Now Board Member and Advisor.

What carries over

Ten years of walking into other people's companies and automating how they operate. That is the first job after every close.

wangift.com

OperatingCorporate gifting · Thailand

Wangift

HR gifting platform in Bangkok. Automates employee birthday and work anniversary cake delivery for companies, baked in its own kitchen.

Tim Grassin, Founder and CEO

What carries over

Daily, hands-on experience running a Thai operating business: a production kitchen, Meta ads and Thai-language SEO.

ondinehouse.com

In buildConsumer brand · Thailand

Ondine

Premium French madeleine gift boxes, made in Bangkok and produced in the Wangift kitchen.

Tim Grassin, Founder

What carries over

A consumer brand built from the first box: product, packaging, delivery channels and paid social in the Thai market.

Also on the record

Backing, advising and building for others.

Investor seats, open-source work and a founder community in the region we buy in.

Netflix

Built some of the original AWS tooling

Caleb

Terraform

Open-source contributor

Caleb

Iterative

Venture Partner, 2022 to 2023

Tim

500 Startups

Mentor, 2020 to 2023

Tim

Buko Ventures

Investor, 2021 to 2023

Tim

DotYeti

Investor. Company since acquired.

Tim

Next Big Wave

Host. A podcast for founders in Southeast Asia.

Tim

Bangkok Startup Association

Organiser

Tim

What this means for the next deal

Five things we do not have to learn on your business.

We have been the seller.

Three exits. We know what a fair process feels like from the owner's chair, and what breaks trust along the way.

Service businesses are home ground.

Stinson Design, Candy Banners and StartOps Group were all founder-led service companies turned into process-driven ones. Most of what we buy will look the same.

Southeast Asia is not new to us.

A fintech built in Manila. An operating company in Bangkok. Hiring, regulation, payments and customer behaviour, all learned first-hand.

Automation is a core skill, not a vendor.

Netflix tooling, Terraform, a decade of DevOps consulting and AI agents at Kubegrade. We build the systems ourselves.

Demand is something we manufacture.

Ad production at Candy Banners, founder-led B2B sales, paid acquisition at TendoPay and Wangift. Growth after the close does not wait on an agency.

The first Mandu acquisitions are next.

Tell us about your business →