Tech · Cultural Heritage · Thailand
From cultural heritage to personalised immersive experience: a knowledge infrastructure for responsible, discerning, learned and sensory travel, born in Thailand, built for the world.
Seed round
USD 80,000
cap USD 100,000 · first quarter of 2027
To let everyone understand a destination in depth and discover it in their own way. To that end, to build with JARUK — from Thailand, with artificial intelligence as a lever and human validation as a rule — a living memory of cultural heritage, documented, verified and transmissible; then to put it in travellers’ hands through applications that make it intelligible and accessible to all, everywhere.
Eric Monteil Founder
Thai heritage is still poorly told to discerning travellers.
01
From Bangkok’s must-sees (Grand Palace, major temples, Chinatown, floating markets) to the historical parks of Ayutthaya and Sukhothai: a limited glimpse of the country’s cultural depth and real difficulty getting off the beaten track.
02
Little content on Thai heritage is available in English, French, Spanish, Italian, etc., across the sites open to visitors, which severely limits access to the richness and complexity of Thai culture.
03
Too few genuinely qualified local guides able to express themselves properly in English, French, Spanish, Italian, etc., for a clientele with high expectations of cultural services, in a market still exposed to ‘zero-dollar tours’.
A knowledge base that supports travellers at every stage through interactive applications and associated services available on mobile.
Before and after the trip
Inspire, then go deeper: bilingual, sourced articles.
Design and delivery
Immersive cultural experiences, tailor-made and led in the field.
On the ground
Explore the heritage of Siam independently with audio guides.
The knowledge base that powers every stage
A single heritage reference feeds the blog, the tour agency and the audio guides.
In time: paid APIs open to third parties.
Four assets already built, self-funded since 2024.
In development (since 2026)
JARUK is the knowledge infrastructure at the heart of the Smartacus ecosystem, devoted to Thailand’s cultural and natural heritage. Driven by artificial intelligence and validated by people, it inventories, documents, structures and connects sites, territories, traditions, services and experiences, with traceability of sources and versions. This foundation feeds Siamnity, TravelDesigner, Blog Around Siam and Rock Around Siam, and may in time be opened to third parties through paid APIs. JARUK is intended to expand internationally, wherever there is a cultural heritage worthy of the name — that is, in most countries of the world.
Operating company (since 2024)
Rock Around Siam is a bespoke tour agency for immersive cultural experiences, based in Bangkok: it designs and leads cultural tours and immersive experiences across Thailand. Every experience is conceived to explore the country beyond conventional circuits, as close as possible to its heritage, its cultures and its landscapes.
In production (since 2026)
A bilingual editorial publication, in French and British English, devoted to Thailand’s cultural and natural heritage: history, territories, architecture, communities, traditions and landscapes. Each article is written with the assistance of artificial intelligence, then checked, sourced and linked to the places, periods and people it covers — a library designed to grow into a knowledge base. It extends the journey before departure as well as after return, and leads its readers naturally to Rock Around Siam and Siamnity.
In production (since 2026)
Siamnity is an audio guide app, discreetly assisted by artificial intelligence, designed for exploring the cultural heritage of Siam on your own. Between themed routes on foot, by bicycle or by tuk-tuk, documented narratives, background explanations, points of interest along the way and carefully chosen cafes and restaurants, our audio guides are built so that you can explore Thailand’s cultural heritage off the beaten path without missing any of its landmarks.
What cannot be copied: 15 years of on-the-ground expertise steering AI to produce sourced, validated content.
Our core market, Western travellers, grew by 31% in two years.
in Western arrivals in 2025, while total arrivals fell by 7.2%.
Ministry of Tourism and Sports
in French-speaking arrivals between 2023 and 2025 (France, Canada, Switzerland, Belgium).
Ministry of Tourism and Sports
Smartacus serviceable addressable market (SAM) in 2027, about USD 61m.
Smartacus business plan
We are raising USD 80,000 to validate the model in Thailand.
Smartacus is preparing its phase 2: from 2027 to 2028, proving in Thailand the business model of an ecosystem already built on its founder’s own funds, before rolling it out internationally. To do so, we are seeking seed funding of USD 80,000 (cap USD 100,000) in exchange for an equity stake.