Siu Rui, Marcus, Lucas, Su Lin and team

 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

 

1. Congratulations to Carousell and welcome to Carousell Campus!

 

2. Carousell captures the essence of second-hand and the circular economy. All of us have our own personal Carousell stories.

 

3. Carousell started in May 2012. I have been on the platform since more than eight years ago and have witnessed its growth. With the advent of mobile, there is potential to continue doing this remarkably and to scale up.

 

4. I want to talk about how Carousell is i) Growing, ii) doing Good, and also iii) growing Green.

 

5. For Growth, I understand that Carousell is now in eight different markets, and have grown spectacularly with smart acquisitions, such as REFASH and Laku6. Carousell is also a company which Singapore is very proud of. We have 4,000 startups and more than 400 VCs in Singapore. Coming back here to the Launchpad allows Carousell to interact with these VCs.

 

6. The second is on doing Good. Carousell chose to come home to pay it forward and is opening up its space to many founders, and giving back. This is something we are very thankful for.

 

7. Finally, going Green. What Carousell has done is not just with the physical space of the office. The essence of its mission is re-commerce, repurposing items and giving them a second lease of life. This is critical as we deal with climate change and in our efforts to go green.

 

8. Of course, there will be growing pains. Years ago when I was in the tech sector, Siu Rui and I talked about the issues of trust and safety as well as manpower.

 

9. On trust and safety, I am happy to see that Su Lin is taking it on with gusto and working together with the Anti-Scam Command. It is a very vexing problem which all platforms face. All of us want to transact on a platform which can be trusted, where what you purchase is trusted and certified.

 

10. It is amazing to see many of these aspects in place, either through the Laku6 authenticator platform, the authenticators or with the Carousell certified programme. Carousell is also using AI to prompt users and identify scams. Thank you for doing that.

 

11. There are also many wonderful people in the Carousell team, and across the Carousell ecosystem. I would just like to assure everyone that the Government is firmly on your side to help you grow and develop. We look forward to growing together with you.

 

12. Thank you and congratulations!