Carousell co-founder Lucas Ngoo will step back from the day-to-day management of the company by the end of the month. In a Feb 15 LinkedIn post, Ngoo says he has made a “personal decision” to take a break.
Ngoo adds that he “continue[s] to have full vested interests in the success of Carousell as co-founder, board director and shareholder”. He will also serve as advisor, “whenever needed”.
“I am grateful for all the support over the past decade, especially to our user community for supporting us to choose secondhand, and sharing your inspiring stories and feedback to help us continually improve,” says Ngoo in his post. “This is just the start of our second decade of Carousell, and there is more to come. Please continue to lend your support to our CarouTeam, as I will.”
Ngoo founded Carousell in 2012 with his university friends Quek Siu Rui and Marcus Tan.
In 2019, Ngoo stepped down as the company’s chief technology officer. He was replaced by ex-Lazada executive Igor Volynskiy.
In a comment under Ngoo’s post, co-founder Quek credits Ngoo for writing “the first lines of code for Carousell”.
“Growing to impact tens of millions of users in our community would not have been possible without you writing the first lines of code for Carousell, and then constantly iterating and inventing these past 12 years. Excited to follow the next steps in your learning journey, and [I] look forward to continue partnering to make secondhand the first choice for everyone!”
The Singapore-headquartered online classifieds and “recommerce” marketplace had reportedly considered going public from around 2020.
In January 2022, Bloomberg reported that Carousell was in talks to go public in the US via a US$1.5 billion merger with blank-cheque company L Catterton Asia Acquisition Corp.
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In mid-2022, however, Bloomberg reported that the company had decided against the spac merger, citing market volatility.
Carousell was last valued at US$1.1 billion, and it raised US$123.5 million between 2021 and August 2023. In September 2023, Carousell unveiled its new headquarters at LaunchPad @ one-north.
Responding to an email query from The Edge Singapore following Ngoo's LinkedIn post, a spokesperson from Carousell says: "Lucas led and built up Carousell’s Tech function, before working with various business and engineering teams across Carousell Group to pilot recommerce projects and building up the Malaysia autos recommerce business. The Carousell Group leadership team will continue to drive the business forward."
