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Hi there,
Welcome to an abbreviated version of The Checkout for this rather short working week!
At the Tech in Asia Conference 2018, Carousell co-founder and CEO Siu Rui Quek gave an inspiring presentation on reimagining classifieds.
He was talking about the startup’s AI-enabled Classifieds 4.0, which reduces the snap-list-sell process from 30 seconds to three seconds and delivers a seamless and secure checkout process with just one tap.
Some of us are old enough to remember the small advertisements in print newspapers – what we now understand to be Classifieds 1.0. Then, these ads moved to desktops (Classifieds 2.0) and subsequently to smartphones (Classifieds 3.0).
It’s no doubt that Carousell is a startup darling in Singapore and Southeast Asia. Its three co-founders grew the company from a fledgling Block 71 firm to a tech unicorn, which is now worth US$1.1 billion and operates across eight markets with 250 million listings.
In recent years, Carousell has ventured into different verticals such as advertising (Carousell Media Group) and used cars (Carousell Auto). Last year, the group acquired Ox Street, a platform for reselling sneakers – a move we analyzed in detail here.
For this week’s Big Story, my colleague, Samreen Ahmad, unpacks the layers of Carousell’s chain of command through a Tech in Asia Org Chart of the firm.
Quek wrote in a LinkedIn post eight months ago that the startup’s plan to make “secondhand the first choice” was only “truly less than 1% done.” Carousell’s mission is still to inspire 1 billion people globally to start selling through its platforms.
As for the near future, however, Carousell still needs to shed light on the path to profitability as it eyes a SPAC listing in the US.
– Huong
THE BIG STORY
Org Chart: The people leading Carousell
Image credit: Timmy Loen
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