Keeping it simple

• Fresh off its unicorn announcement, co-founder CEO of 500-backed Carousell, Siu Rui Quek appeared on CNN to speak about the startup’s hopes for the re-commerce market.
• Siu Rui was driven by two philosophies: helping people save money and the earth. “We were singularly focused on solving this problem of people having too many things that are unused and underutilized,” he explained. “We wanted to make it really simple for them.”
• Carousell was launched in 2012 as a mobile-first platform, enabling users to put up items for sale in 30 seconds.
• By 2013, the startup reached its first million listing. As of 2019, this number had risen to 250 million, including secondhand cars and property.
• Watch the full interview on CNN here.

A mental battle

• Soon after publishing the largest Malaysian mental health dataset, 500-backed digital health startup Naluri has eyes on a bigger goal: building the largest one in Southeast Asia.
• Cultural taboos and misinformation make mental health issues stigmatized and poorly understood in the region. As a result, cases are undertreated and underreported, leading governments to channel their efforts and funding into other areas.
• To combat this, the startup has launched the Naluri Mental Health Assessment, available for free. It is based on a widely recognized mental health self-check that calculates a person’s risk for depression, anxiety, and stress.
• Results are private and confidential, but demographical data has been included to help better understand mental health conditions in Southeast Asia.
• The assessment comprises 21 multiple choice questions and takes less than 5 minutes.
• Complete the Naluri Mental Health Assessment here (available in English, Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese, and Thai).

Setting houses in order

• Cha-Ly Koh, CEO of 500-backed UrbanMetry appeared on BFM 89.9, a business radio station in Malaysia, to speak about the housing market in Malaysia and how it can be improved.
• She questioned blanket housing policies that apply to the whole of Malaysia. “There are different needs across different states and we need to address it in almost an ‘acupunctural’ way,” she said.
• She added that one of the main struggles for buyers is the steep learning curve for the first-timer. She believes the idea of homeownership is too romanticized, with people often signing agreements without fully understanding the legalese.
• While there are policies in place to protect the buyer, Cha-Ly believes they are not practical when buyers struggle to even understand the complexity of the agreements.
• Listen to the full interview on BFM here.