You’ve probably been visiting some of these websites and using their services for years without realising they are 100% home-grown businesses. Well now you know. Malaysia boleh, man!
1. Groupon Malaysia
Groupon Malaysia began as GroupsMore, which was launched in September 2010. It was competing with about 20 other Malaysian deal sites at the time. GroupsMore was designed to be a clone of the US website Groupon, the first-of-its-kind group buying site. Just 5 months after GroupsMore was launched, it was acquired by the still-fledgling Groupon for an undisclosed amount, forming Groupon Malaysia.
What’s significant about the deal (which was completed in record time) was that it generated a lot of buzz among investors and start-ups in the region. It made global companies, investors and VCs sit up and take notice of the Malaysian tech scene.
GroupsMore was founded by serial entrepreneurs, Joel Neoh and Khailee Ng, when they were still in their 20s. Joel continues to head Groupon in Asia, leading it to be the world’s fastest growing company ever (according to Forbes).
Groupon has now expanded into Taiwan, and is one of the largest e-commerce businesses in the region. In 2012, Groupon Malaysia and Groupon Taiwan had over 3,000,000 subscribers and employed over 300 employees
2 – GrabTaxi (aka MyTeksi in Malaysia)
MyTeksi (GrabTaxi) is the region’s number one taxi booking mobile app. The idea behind the free app is simplicity itself — call a taxi with just a few taps on your smartphone. Its mission is to change the way 600 million people across Southeast Asia move, making taxi rides safer and more efficient. The MyTeksi app is currently available in 3 cities in Malaysia, and another 14 cities across Thailand, Singapore, Philippines and Vietnam (where the app is known as GrabTaxi).
MyTeksi was launched in 2012 by 2 Malaysian grads from Harvard Business School, Anthony Tan (the grandson of Tan Chong Motor’s co-founder Tan Sri Tan Yuet Foh), and Hooi Ling Tan. They had entered their business plan in a competition to get validation from their professor about MyTeksi. Their business plan eventually won second place.
MyTeksi continues to attract investors, having recently raised another USD10million to fund its expansion plans, with a possible listing in the stock market.
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3 – Jobstreet.com
Started in 1997 (which makes it the grand-daddy of Malaysian tech start-ups), JobStreet.com is Southeast Asia’s largest online employment company, according to Forbes. It revolutionised the way recruitment was done.
As of 2012, Jobstreet.com serves about 80,000 corporate customers and 11 million jobseekers in the region. The company is present in Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, Japan and Vietnam. JobStreet.com is in Forbes Asia’s list of Best 200 Under a Billion companies for 2007 and 2008. However, in 2013, it crossed the RM1 billion market capitalization milestone.
JobStreet.com was listed on MESDAQ in 2004 and transferred to the Main Board in 2007. JobStreet.com has shares in Taiwanese online employment provider 104 Corporation, and online marketing company, Innity Corporation. It also owns the automotive portal, Autoworld.com.my.
Envisioned to provide an automated platform for accurately matching employers and jobseekers, JobStreet.com was founded by Mark Chang as a spin-off of MOL.com in 1995. The company was co-founded Ng Kay Yip and Lim Chao Li. Under Mark’s leadership, the JobStreet Group survived the dotcom bust in the 2000s and has since grown to be a regional powerhouse.
Jobstreet.com is recently in talks to finalise a deal to be fully acquired by SEEK Ltd, an internet recruitment company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). SEEK already owns 22% of Jobstreet.com and it will acquire the remaining Internet assets of JobStreet.com for RM1.9 billion (yes, that’s a ‘b’ next to the number).
4. Nuffnang
Nuffnang lets companies serve ads on its network of over 1,000,000 blogs worldwide, according to target audience and budget. It acts as the middleman between advertisers and bloggers, putting them in contact with each other. Nuffnang plans out integrated social media ad campaigns for advertiser, which is then deployed on blogs with the appropriate audience. Ads can range from blogger’s reviews to advertorials, as well as banner ads. Advertisers who have engaged Nuffnang include blue chips such as Citibank, Honda, Walls, AirAsia, Nokia, Nike, Nescafe, Twisties, and more.
Beyond blog advertising, Nuffnang also actively builds a community of bloggers, hosting numerous events to bring bloggers together, where they can network and have fun.
Nuffnang was co-founded by Timothy Tiah and Cheo Ming Shen in 2007. The idea to create a community for bloggers came to Timothy while he was studying in the UK. Noticing that bloggers enjoyed a lot of traffic, he realised that there should be a company to represent bloggers to advertisers.
Starting up with RM150,000, Nuffnang.com.my was launched and 300 bloggers signed up within the first three days. Today, Nuffnang is the world’s leading blog advertising community, expanding to Singapore, Thailand, Australia, China, Philippines, and the UK.
5. Piktochart
Multi award-winning Piktochart is a web-based software that makes creating infographics super easy. Users can visualize data with charts, graphs and maps using data embedded in xls, xlsx, csv files or Google spreadsheets in just a few minutes.
In 3 easy steps, any design-challenged dude can create, share and dazzle with beautiful professional-looking infographics. It’s shareable on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+. You can also link, embed, email or download your infographics. You can include multiple interactive elements in the infographics – including embedded videos, hyperlinks and clickable items. It’s even readable by search engines.
Piktochart currently has over 1,400,000 users worldwide and comes highly recommended by Forbes Magazine.
Piktochart is actually a start-up based in Penang, co-founded by the husband-and-wife team of Andrea Zaggia and Goh Ai Ching in March 2012. Ai Ching has a degree in Experimental Psychology and had dabbled in investment banking, media and entrepreneurship. Her Italian husband, Andrea, is a web developer.
Though only two years old, the company surpassed RM1 million in revenue in August 2013.
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