Singapore Personal Training Studio Catalyst Performance Becomes the First Fitness Brand Ever to Win the National SME AI Impact Awards

The first and only fitness brand among the 30 winners of Singapore's inaugural national SME AI Impact Awards, organised by IMDA and the Singapore Business Federation, has grown its organic search clicks more than 16 times since its website rebuild, and is putting significant capital into hosting its own AI models.

Singapore, SINGAPORE, Oct. 16, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Catalyst Performance, a personal training studio in Singapore for adults training for the long term, has won the SME AI Impact Awards 2026 in the Adoption Excellence category. Organised by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and the Singapore Business Federation, the inaugural awards were presented by Josephine Teo, Minister for Digital Development and Information, during SMEs Go Digital Day on October 13, 2026. Catalyst Performance co-founder and general manager Bervin Manoharan accepted the award on behalf of the company. Of the 30 small and medium-sized enterprises recognised, 15 received awards in the Adoption Excellence category. Catalyst Performance is the only fitness brand among them, which makes it the first fitness brand ever to win Singapore's national SME AI Impact Awards.

Bervin Manoharan, co-founder and general manager of Catalyst Performance, receives the SME AI Impact Awards 2026 Adoption Excellence award from Josephine Teo, Minister for Digital Development and Information, at SMEs Go Digital Day on 13 October 2026.

The award recognises the custom systems behind the studio, and one co-founder built all of them. Bervin Manoharan did every part of the technical work himself: the website, the marketing systems, the operations panel, the WhatsApp and Instagram assistants and the client nutrition log. Each one is built around how the studio coaches, on whichever AI model does the job best, from DeepSeek to Fable, the latest Claude model from Anthropic.

"There was budget for an agency," said Bervin Manoharan, co-founder and general manager of Catalyst Performance. "But nobody was going to care about this business the way I do, and nobody would promise an outcome. Understandably. So I took it on myself and made the promise to myself instead: everything we have achieved since, in the shortest time possible."

The judges assessed the nomination figures: organic search clicks up over 300%, search impressions up 190% and a Google search position that more than doubled. The Singapore Business Federation checked those figures at the source, at the studio in August. The numbers have kept moving. On the same comparison today, the 60 days to 12 October 2026 against 9 March to 8 May 2026 in Google Search Console, organic search clicks are up more than 1,500%, more than 16 times their level before the new website. Search impressions are eight times higher, and the studio now sits on the first page of Google, up from page 4.

The next step is ownership. Catalyst Performance is putting significant capital into hosting its own AI models and infrastructure, so that the processing and the models sit inside the business and belong to it. "A model trained on white papers knows the research," said Manoharan. "One trained on our own work knows the tens of thousands of real people our coaches have worked with across our careers: the assessments, the sessions, what worked and what didn't."

The investment serves the reason the studio exists. Bervin Manoharan, Jeremy Soh and Dr Luqman Haris left corporate roles in the industry to set up Catalyst Performance and bring the best personal training in Singapore, from the best personal trainers in Singapore, to far more people than one floor can hold. "The biggest barrier to high-quality personal training has always been the cost," said Manoharan. "Owning the technology is how we bring that down without lowering the standard."

The coaching itself does not change. Singapore's best personal training is the kind that can prove the number moved, and that is the standard Catalyst is built on. Every client starts with the Catalyst Healthspan Assessment, a healthspan assessment in Singapore that measures four pillars as one health and fitness assessment: body composition, cardiorespiratory fitness, stability and strength. Healthspan comes first, and the look comes with the work, a stop on the journey, not the destination. What a transformation gym sells as the finish line, a body transformation and a photograph, is a pit stop at Catalyst, because its clients train for the next thirty years.

Catalyst Performance is a personal training studio in Singapore for adults from their 30s onward, at Manulife Tower, a short walk from Raffles Place, Tanjong Pagar and Telok Ayer. It offers private personal training in Singapore in a private gym setting, executive personal training, longevity personal training, strength coaching, body composition analysis and coaching for sustainable fat loss. Clients range from adults over 50 to athletes in sports performance training, and the studio also coaches pre-natal and post-natal personal training. Catalyst publishes its rates, so the cost of personal training in Singapore is clear before the first session. For adults choosing the best personal trainer Singapore offers, that is the test, and it is the one Catalyst was designed to pass.

The award follows the studio's publication of healthspan findings from over 1,500 completed Healthspan Audits, its free three-minute online assessment. The findings are at https://catalystperformance.sg/report?r=r3 and the Healthspan Audit is at https://catalystperformance.sg/healthspan-audit. The studio's own guide to judging a personal trainer in Singapore is at https://catalystperformance.sg/best-personal-trainer-singapore. More on the award is at https://catalystperformance.sg/award.

About Catalyst Performance

Catalyst Performance is a healthspan and longevity focused personal training studio at Manulife Tower in Singapore's Central Business District. The studio delivers one-to-one personal training built on the Catalyst Healthspan Assessment, a four-pillar evaluation covering body composition, cardiorespiratory fitness, stability and strength, and trains working professionals from their 30s onward. The studio was founded by Bervin Manoharan, Jeremy Soh and Dr Luqman Haris, whose coaching careers span more than 25 years combined. Catalyst Performance is a winner of the SME AI Impact Awards 2026 (Adoption Excellence), organised by IMDA and the Singapore Business Federation. Find the studio on Google Maps at https://maps.app.goo.gl/iSki5GV3FLFtehtHA, on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/catalystperformancesg and on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/catalyst-performance-singapore. More at https://catalystperformance.sg

About Bervin Manoharan

Bervin Manoharan is co-founder and general manager of Catalyst Performance. He designed the studio's free three-minute Healthspan Audit, which over 1,500 people have completed, and leads its data and research programme, including the Singapore healthspan statistics hub at https://catalystperformance.sg/report?r=r3

Media contact: Bervin Manoharan, bervin@catalystperformance.sg

Winners of the inaugural SME AI Impact Awards 2026 with Minister Josephine Teo at SMEs Go Digital Day, organised by IMDA and the Singapore Business Federation.

Press Inquiries

Bervin Manoharan
bervin [at] catalystperformance.sg
https://catalystperformance.sg
Catalyst Performance
8 Cross Street, #05-03 Manulife Tower
Singapore 048424