This co-founder of Singapore robotics company Lionsbot once sold cleaning equipment from door to door

In a fortress-like Kranji factory standing at the epicentre of Singapore’s circular ambitions, forklifts disgorged by recycling and waste management plants chunter up a winding multi-storey carpark. It’s not where you might expect to find what’s billed as Southeast Asia’s largest cleaning robot factory.
Here, a phalanx of hulking Mars rover-reminiscent machines stand sentinel beside a makeshift maze, where their smaller platoon mates glide soundlessly under the scrutiny of men in black. Slated to crank out some 4,000 robots annually to serve clients in more than 30 markets, homegrown robotics firm Lionsbot’s cavernous new S$12 million (US$9.07 million) facility is a glimpse at Singapore’s advanced manufacturing heft.
That’s what makes it almost inconceivable that the firm — ranked fifth among Singapore’s fastest growing companies in 2024 — began as a two-man outfit peddling cleaning equipment from door to door.  The duo behind the rough spun operation are university sweethearts Dylan Ng and Michelle Seow. In 2002, they had graduated with an entrepreneurial bent and urge to “take the path less travelled.”
Ng, an avid tinkerer who used to put together custom-built desktop computers for sale to family and friends, met Seow at an accounting class after dropping out of his engineering module. He’d felt stultified by established systems and processes, and hankered for creative freedom.
“I’m not exactly very good at following rules, but I like generating ideas and making things come to life,” shared Ng.
His future wife, in contrast, was “a very conscientious and attentive student” with whom he’d struck up a conversation after showing her his PalmPilot. Noughties flex aside, the marketing majors were both beguiled by the same north star. Having studied selling dreams for a living, they’d sold themselves the dream of starting their own business.
So, when a friend approached them to sell steam cleaners for commission, they swooped in on the offer.
“We’re crazy risk-takers. We told ourselves, ‘What have you got to lose? If it doesn’t work out, then let’s get a job’,” recalled Ng.
Bristling with optimism — or depending on your general outlook, foolhardiness — they plonked down their entire savings of S$2,000 each to bootstrap SuperSteam, a distributor of professional cleaning equipment and chemicals. They conducted the requisite research, rehearsed their pitch and cast off into the ponderous, pavement pounding unknown of sales demonstrations.
Revenue came in fits and starts, while rejection and feeling tuckered out from hauling bulky equipment up flights of stairs were all in a day’s work.
“We rented a van at S$50 per day, which was all the money we had, so we often skipped lunch to buy petrol,” recounted Ng. University peers expressed shock at their life choice, eschewing the comfortable corporate world to rattle around in clapped out second-hand vans.
At the nadir of their early struggles, they were forced to move their operation from an office to the garage belonging to Ng’s mother. But the couple plugged away at their sales spiels nonetheless, boosted by supportive family, friends and strangers who purchased their products. Eventually, they changed tack, targeting commercial clients such as food manufacturers instead of individual consumers. To wrest an edge over established competitors, they worked closely with customers to understand their needs, travelled to improve their repertoire of equipment and began formulating cleaning chemicals. The latter is a process Ng described as complicated, creative and akin to “cooking chicken soup.”
“There were many established players in the market, but they weren’t innovating. But Michelle and I had a lot of hunger in us, and an overriding mission to feed the entire team and build a better business that would stand the test of time,” said Ng.
Their journey was punctuated by sobering lessons, such as when they had to downsize to arrest a decline in revenue, on the back of a bumper sales year where they’d tripled their headcount. On numerous occasions, they’d be sweating bullets, with their ability to make payroll hinged upon a single pay cheque.
“Michelle and I are a very good team together. She’d help me make appointments and I’d start the demonstrations at food factories at five in the morning. I’d end the day at six, and by the time I crawled back into bed, I wished I was dead,” recalled the 48-year-old, who admitted that his detail-oriented wife is a foil for his “super messy” self.
AUTOMATION CALLS
Their tenacity prevailed. By 2017, the couple had anchored SuperSteam as a market leader that netted a multi-million-dollar annual profit. Feeling the ennui of career stagnation settling in, they began rooting around for their next white whale. A religious man, Ng chalks up their success to divine intervention. Despite flying close to the wind, their first venture had somehow managed to ride out the white-knuckle moments.
This time, as bright-eyed talk about newly launched government support for automation floated around the ether, they decided to plunge into manufacturing cleaning robots in 2018. It was on the nose, given Singapore’s ageing workforce and labour crunch.
Having charted their course, the couple said a prayer. Within a week, their phone rang. On the line was a teammate of Mohan Rajesh Elara, an associate professor with the Engineering Product Development Pillar at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). His proposition held piquancy: “He said: ‘Hey, my professor bought one of your machines and made it semi-robotic. Would you like to see it?’” recalled Ng.
Lionsbot’s beginnings sound especially serendipitous when narrated by Ng, who — good-humoured with a coaxing voice — could be pegged for a youth counsellor. In reality, he and his wife had been scoping out cleaning robots overseas for several years, unable to find a suitable fit.
Developing their own robots may have, at the time, seemed like a flight of fancy, but Professor Mohan’s robotics expertise lent them ballast, alongside the couple’s industry connections. The trio started Lionsbot with a team of five engineers, who worked at breakneck speed to develop their first prototype in just seven months.
Their feat of engineering, the anthropomorphic LeoBot, was a crowd-pleaser. “We focused a lot on what we call the robot personality,” explained Ng. “The LeoBots had heads, expressive eyes and could talk, as well as clean well. So, that helped us get the world’s attention; all the other robots out there looked like little fridges or dustbins that moved,” he added.
STAY FLEET-FOOTED
From the jump, Lionsbot has played to its strengths as a smaller, faster and more agile player, rolling out five generations of cleaning robots in six years. Iterating fast bears risk. Ng admits he’s learnt to be more financially prudent and circumspect in planning, after witnessing competitors flame out due to swelling operating expenses.
He credits the company’s success to his “young and talented team” of employees who’ve had to don multiple hats and work in tandem to keep pace with the market. For instance, he shared that while aesthetics once took precedence, companies now seek the most cost-effective robots.
To that end, his team has conjured the R3 Scrub Pro, a compact machine equipped with advanced AI and 3D LiDAR technology to detect and adapt to its surroundings precisely.
Lionsbot’s high-tech creations are deployed at mega hubs such as Changi Airport, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol and London Luton Airport. The firm has a firm foothold in the US and the Netherlands, where it has established outposts. With Western customers increasingly chary of data breeches, it isn’t implausible that this powerhouse from a tiny island nation recognised for its sound cybersecurity policies has managed to horn in on a market dominated by the Chinese.
While Singapore has been said to boast the world’s highest adoption rate of industrial robots, Ng revealed that the general sentiment on the ground overseas towards the country’s cleaning robot manufacturing capabilities is a resounding, “Huh?” Yet, his company has cultivated a reputation for quality. He says a recent infiltration of shell cleaning robot companies registered in Singapore bears testament to the country’s growing cachet in the field.
And he’s got vaulting ambitions to match. Lionsbot is building the holy grail of cleaning robots: “One that can be used without further professional mapping or training.” It’s also gearing up for a NASDAQ listing in 2027.