He Watched Quietly for 8 Years. Then Raised US$2M in Two.
Tiago Alves was a successful corporate employee in Portugal when the startup world called. Alluring and exciting, he desired to be part of it somehow. So when Aptoide – an alternative app distribution and payment platform competing with Google Play – picked him to run the Asia business, Tiago moved to Singapore in August 2015 in a flash.
He was so intrigued with the startup ecosystem here that he chose to base Aptoide’s office at BLOCK71 – a gritty industrial hub full of startup founders instead of a gleaming CBD co-working space. It was here where Tiago began a multi-year journey of watching, learning and networking, without knowing that he’ll one day raise US$2 million as a founder years later.
Tiago went on to help Aptoide reach nearly 100 million monthly active users. And when the company pivoted its focus to the US market, he chose to stay and joined Golden Gate Ventures as a Partner.
That front-row seat to dozens of founders pitching, struggling, and pivoting would prove more valuable than any MBA. Eight years of rubbing shoulders with the who’s who in the ecosystem, but none of those encounters were for his own show.
That all changed when ChatGPT was launched in November 2022. In the months that followed, Tiago was left in awe of the unlimited potential AI can bring to any industry. Amidst the excitement a question emerged: how do we apply this to B2B?
Inspired by the possibilities and energised by a whole new breed of AI startups, Tiago couldn’t resist the call and co-founded The Librarian in November 2023: an AI tool that lets you search across all your data sources through WhatsApp. The original vision was elegant in its ambition: be Siri for everything, but on WhatsApp. Drafting emails. Scheduling meetings. Surfacing documents.
One interface to rule them all.
By April 2025, The Librarian had 500 monthly active users. At this time, Tiago had been in Singapore for 10 years and knew exactly the VCs who would be interested in his startup. He went to them, but they said: that’s just your friends and family. Come back with 5,000.
He ran a Product Hunt launch, pushed hard on marketing, and got there – 10x growth in a few months. He went back to the same VCs. They said: not bad. But are they paying? He started charging and got the first 100 paying users. He came back again. They said: show us $1M ARR.
“I know why VCs keep moving the goalposts. But such things are never easy to deal with” he says, with the weary clarity of someone who once was the goalpost mover as a VC partner. Each time a milestone was met, the bar got raised just like that. That’s a particular kind of frustration reserved for someone who has been on both sides of the equation.
But that grind created a golden insight. When Tiago got his first 100 paying users and asked what they did for a living, three profiles emerged: real estate agents, insurance agents, and startup founders.
This was the data point that changed everything.
In December 2025, he decided to go deep into real estate because insurance has a lot more compliance requirements and startups usually want to keep things very lean and won’t pay.
The following month, Tiago went around the world and spoke to over 100 agents across Singapore, Dubai, and the US. What he found stunned him: more than 80% of them were still taking notes with pen and paper, then typing them up at night. Lead management was a mess. Property searches were manual. Follow-ups fell through the cracks.
The Librarian has found its niche.
By February 2026, the pivot was live: a voice-first AI companion for real estate agents that captures a voice note on WhatsApp, automatically transcribes it into a lead profile, surfaces matching properties from PropertyGuru, and sets tasks and reminders – all without an agent ever touching a dashboard. The whole flow, from voice note to property recommendations, takes under three minutes.
Turns out Tiago wasn’t just waiting in the first 8 years in Singapore – he was witnessing, absorbing, and accumulating reps without counting them. Without the intention to build something. But when the winds blew in his favour and it was finally his turn, instincts kicked in – he knew exactly what to do, who to find and in just two years raised that US$2m seed money.
Are you like Tiago? How long have you been watching? At some point, watching becomes a choice. If you’ve seen the market shifts, built the conviction around an idea, and the only thing left is a decision, then joining BLOCK71 Singapore might just be the decision you need to make now.
You’ll show up with that quiet bravery of a founder. We’ll bring the acceleration and connections.
Real beats polished
Going private
Owning your stack
I echo the shift to private groups as I saw the change in our user community when we moved beyond social media content and into DMs, meetups, and events. The interactions amongst users and with us changed in texture, for the better. These private spaces are necessary because the topics we deal with are quite sensitive.
