The problem
Before Carousell, selling a used phone or sofa in Southeast Asia meant a desktop forum post, endless haggling over SMS, and meeting a stranger with cash. Listing was tedious, buyers flaked, and there was no protection for either side — so homes filled with idle goods while secondhand demand went unserved.
How it works
Born at the 2012 NUS Startup Weekend hackathon as Team SnapSell, Carousell made listing as easy as snapping a photo. The app grew into a multi-category classifieds group — absorbing Mudah, Cho Tot and OneKyat through the 2019 merger with Telenor’s 701Search — and then evolved into transaction-led recommerce: in-app payments and shipping, Certified inspection for luxury and phones, a Sell-to-Carousell instant-offer programme, and 29 physical stores by end-FY25.
Pain points
Clunky incumbent forums built for desktops, fraud and fakes in high-value categories, flaky meetups with no payment rails, and dealers and consumers with no trusted channel between casual listings and full retail.
Business model
Listings and advertising revenue from the classifieds base, take-rates and resale margins on managed recommerce, autos auction and property verticals, plus fintech referrals — a mix that made recommerce 45% of FY25 revenue, the group’s largest contributor to growth.
Challenges
The recommerce engine is operationally heavy — inspection, refurbishment and stores cost real money — while Shopee, Facebook Marketplace and traditional dealers fight for the same secondhand wallet. After a $1.1B valuation in 2021, investors expect sustained profitable growth, not just one EBITDA-positive year.
Funding
- Raised: $56M from Naspers (2019, plus OLX Philippines acquisition), funding from Telenor with the 701Search merger (2019), $80M from Naver, Mirae Asset-Naver Asia Growth Fund and NH Investment & Securities (2020), and $100M from STIC Investments (2021) at a $1.1B valuation (NUS).
- Valuation: $1.1B at the STIC-led round (Sep 2021).
Latest — Jul 2026
Carousell Group announced FY25 results: revenue up 18% year-on-year to $141M (nearly triple FY21), positive EBITDA for the first time on operating leverage and discipline, with recommerce revenue up 40% to 45% of the total — and set FY26 priorities of scaling recommerce while investing in AI for trust and discovery (company press release, 7 Jul 2026).