Marcus Tan, Quek Siu Rui and Lucas Ngoo were students at the National University of Singapore. In 2012 the three won Startup Weekend Singapore and launched Carousell as a mobile app. The first item sold was an Amazon Kindle for S$75.
Tan's part was product, with the title of chief product officer. The app was built around a simple idea: take a photo, list the item in seconds and chat with the buyer. Carousell Pte. Ltd. was incorporated in January 2013.
Before building more, the founders visited flea markets. Of 100 sellers they asked, 70 answered that they would use the app. For the first 1.5 years the three co-founders drew no salaries, took the train to work and ate cheap meals.
The company later bought Caarly in October 2016 and merged with Telenor's 701Search in November 2019, which brought in Mudah, Chotot and OneKyat. In September 2021 Carousell was valued at $1.1 billion.