Adjusted realities
The kind that makes you go, “Beep! Beep!”
Today’s newsletter takes a look at: i) Malaysian unicorn Carsome’s rocky road and ii) whether Malaysia’s startup ecosystem has truly hit the ceiling?
First, some housekeeping: Saturday’s newsletter had a cool infographic on the possible list of Malaysian tycoons affected by Trump’s tariffs, but there was an error in one of the columns. The table is fixed.
You won’t find the updated infographic in your inbox — the downside to running a newsletter business.
But you can definitely get the updated version on the site itself 👇🏽
You’re reading a paid version of The Malaysianist, a newsletter on money and power by writer and journalist Emmanuel Samarathisa.
I run monthly and annual subscriptions. There’s also the atas or founding member tier where you get all the perks of an annual subscription and more, such as an annual or founder’s report and insight into how this little corner of the internet fared throughout the year.
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The subject of today’s newsletter was sparked by a bit of banter some time ago about Malaysian used-car platform Carsome, which recently issued a press release celebrating its adjusted ebitda.
Once touted as Malaysia’s first unicorn, Carsome drew attention as the country’s chance to make up for “losing” internet giant Grab to Singapore back in 2014.
At the height of the hype, even Malaysian government-linked tech investors got jittery when Temasek-backed funds invested in the company.
That was early 2022. Before Temasek stepped in, Malaysia’s own Khazanah Nasional had already committed US$50 million, according to The Ken.
But the dream of striking gold in the used-car market is looking increasingly illusory.
The problem isn’t just that profitability remains elusive — that's par for the course in tech (or at least this side of the tech equation) — but that the viability of a unicorn built on this model is now genuinely in question.