18 Famous Succesful Young Entrepreneurs In Singapore
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Singapore is the next country on our series of country-specific young entrepreneurs list.
Singapore has captured international attention in the past few years for producing some of the biggest unicorns in the South East Asian Region.
The country’s young famous entrepreneurs have been filling in more and more slots in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list.
Thanks mostly to a rising middle class, business-friendly government policies, and political and economic stability, Singapore’s startup ecosystem ranks 4th in the region (behind Beijing, Shanghai and Tokyo), and 17th globally. (Source: Asian Development Bank)
Singapore Department of Statistics recently estimated the number of tech startups to be more than 4000.
Singapore’s high-quality infrastructure, ease of doing business, availability of electricity and water, and mobile and smartphone penetration are some of the reasons behind the country’s phenomenal growth in the startup ecosystem.
This is the reason even some European entrepreneurs are moving to Singapore to take advantage of the nurturing environment provided in the country. (We’ve included such young entrepreneurs in our list below)
Before I forget, here are a few other Young Entrepreneur lists from across the globe that might interest you:
a. Young Aussie Entrepreneurs
b. Canadian Entrepreneurs List
c. Kiwi Young Entrepreneurs List
Coming back to Singapore – Now you might imagine that with such excellent conditions, it is only obvious that the country must be producing top-notch young entrepreneurs who are helping build some of the largest companies in singapore.
And you would not be wrong!
The country is home to some of the richest young entrepreneurs in the region, even some billionaires among them.
So, hopefully, after having piqued your interest in meeting those young bright minds, let me present to you the top entrepreneurs of Singapore.
Anthony Tan
Company Name: Grab
Company Position: CEO and Co-founder
Year of Birth: 1982
Year founded: 2012
Company Estimated Wealth: $34.5 Billion
Sector: Tech, Transportation
Topping the list is a Singaporean about to become a billionaire.
Anthony Tan is the co-founder and chief executive of the ride-hailing app Grab.
Anthony founded the company along with his cofounder Tan Hooi Lang in 2012 by the name of MyTaksi app in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Tan was born in Malaysia but later moved to Singapore in 2016.
Tan’s personal wealth stands at $790 million.
He was listed in Forbes’ 50 Richest People in Malaysia in 2010 and Forbes’ 50 Richest in Singapore in 2021. (Source: Forbes)
His app was able to push uber out of the country in 2018. (Source: Business Insider)
The ride-hailing app grew to rival Uber in Southeast Asia and eventually pushed it out of the region in 2018.
Grab has grown to become more than just a ride-sharing app. It is now turning into a super-app that can be used to seek grocery deliveries to buy insurance.
The app is available in eight different countries. (Source: Forbes)
“The tech CEO is famous for optimizing his schedule for maximum efficiencies, such as by taking calls on the treadmill, and has been quoted saying he doesn’t have time to watch movies.” (Source: Business Insider)
Gang Ye
Company Name: Sea Ltd
Company Position: Cofounder, Chairman, and COO
Year of Birth: 1980
Year founded: 2009
Company Estimated Wealth: $31.4 Billion
Sector: E-commerce, Media & Entertainment
The second on the list is a Chinese-turned-Singaporean entrepreneur who co-founded the multi-billion-dollar company Sea, Ltd.
Although born in China, Gang Ye moved to Singapore in his teens and is now a naturalized citizen of Singapore. (Source: The Strait Times)
Gang Ye founded Sea, Ltd in 2009 along with two other co-founders.
Sea, ltd is an internet consumer company that operates in digital entertainment, e-commerce, and digital payment services. (Source: Reuters)
Sea became widely known for its game Free Fire which became one of the top 5 mobile games and bagged $1 billion in revenue in 2019. (Source: SCMP)
The same year, Gang Ye became a billionaire and has a current net worth of $2.5 billion, and is currently the 13th richest person in Singapore. (Source: Forbes)
Before co-founding the multi-billion dollar company, Gang Ye worked at Wilmar International and the Economic Development Board of Singapore. (Source: Sea Official Website)
“Besides design experience, I have helped my teams to set up a design environment, design methodology, flow, cost analysis, schedule planning, etc. as a technical leader. I also have good experience in project management.” (Source: Ye’s LinkedIn)
Min-Liang Tan
Company Name: Razer
Company Position: Co-founder, Chairman, CEO
Year of Birth: 1977
Year founded: 2015
Company Estimated Wealth: $1.6 Billion
Sector: Computer hardware, Consumer electronics
A former lawyer and current entrepreneur Min-Liang Tan is the 3rd person on our list.
Although he is currently 44 years old, Tan was featured in Forbes Singapore Riches List in 2016 when he was 38 years old. (Source: Forbes)
He currently wears many hats at his company Razer, which specializes in manufacturing gaming chairs.
Tan also founded the Open Source Virtual Reality platform which aims to create a common standard for VR program design.
Tan hopes to create an entire virtual reality industry, foreseeing phenomenon prospects of its application in healthcare, entertainment, and military realms. (Source: The Peak Magazine)
“Tan is as adored in the media and corporate worlds, consistently being named one of the world’s best bosses, with Razer as one of the best companies to work for.” (Source: The Peak Magazine)
Gregory Van
Company Name: Endowus
Company Position: CEO and Co-founder
Year of Birth: 1987
Year founded: 2017
Company Estimated Wealth: $1.5 Billion
Sector: Fintech
Gregory Van is the founder of the digital wealth platform which was launched in 2017 with a vision to democratize wealth management.
Gregory believed that investing should be accessible to all and in pursuit of this belief, his company Endowus is an advisor to both private wealth and public pension savings. (Source: Prestige)
Gregory started his career in investment banking at UBS where he advised and helped raise funding for private equity and venture capital firms in the Asia Pacific. (Source: Endowus)
Gregory has also been a pioneer team member at Grab and helped launched the app’s digital payment services.
Gregory’s vision goes beyond wealth management. He believes in advancing the human experience of money. (Source: Endowus)
Gregory was awarded the CEO of the Year by Asia Asset Management’s Best of the Best Awards for the year 2022.
“As a young father of two himself, Gregory experienced firsthand the challenges of managing the finances of a family and decided to harness his expertise in tech and finance to help empower others to reach their financial goals.” (Source: Prestige)
Ian Ang
Company Name: Secretlab
Company Position: CEO and Co-founder
Year of Birth: 1992
Year founded: 2014
Company Estimated Wealth: $1.5 Billion
Sector: Furniture
The number 5 position on our list is also occupied by an entrepreneur whose company has an estimated net worth of billions of dollars. (Source: TechinAsia)
Ian Ang is a businessman and entrepreneur who founded the gaming chair company Secretlab.
Ang launched Secretlab in 2014 with fellow esports player Alaric Choo.
As with many entrepreneurial stories, Secretlab was also formed by Ang after his frustration with the quality of gaming chairs available in the market.
After not being able to find a gaming chair that could satisfy his requirements. Ang decided to manufacture a chair that would be comfortable, functional, and beautiful and would come with a local warranty. (Source: Strait Times)
Ang is the company’s CEO and oversees engineering, marketing, and product strategy.
He is known to have adopted the title of “Protector of the Realm”, inspired by Games of Thrones. (Source: CNALuxury)
Secretlab continues to see phenomenal sales and the company sold its millionth chair in August 2019. (Source: Business Times)
“There were no textbook answers or anybody to refer to out there. We’ve always had to take a very creative approach to everything that we do.” (Source: TechinAsia)
Quek Siu Rui
Company Name: Carousell
Company Position: CEO and Co-founder
Year of Birth: 1988
Year founded: 2012
Company Estimated Wealth: $1.1 Billion
Sector: E-Commerce
We have reached the 6th entrepreneur on our list of the top entrepreneurs in Singapore and we are yet not out of the billion-dollars-company-founders club.
That tells you a lot about the nurturing startup environment in the country, doesn’t it?
Quek Siu Rui, co-founded the e-marketing company Carousell in 2012 along with two of his companions to provide an online buy-and-sell platform dedicated to cell phone users.
As with our previous story, Carousell was also a product of the personal dissatisfaction and frustration of an entrepreneur who then decided to launch his own service.
Siu Rui got sick of the old digital buy-and-sell platforms when he tried to sell his MacBook. He found the interface in them troublesome and wanted to create a more streamlined platform. (Source: Wikipedia)
Well, as a reader of Lessons at Startup, herein lies a lesson for you. Find a problem that you face regularly and provide yourself and the world with its solution. You’ll make yourself an entrepreneur in the process!
Rui has been featured in Forbes 30 under 30 Asia list in 2018 for his achievement with Carousell. (Source: Forbes)
Sir Rui is a graduate of the National University of Singapore with a Bachelor of Business Administration and Entrepreneurship degree.
During his degree, he was twice listed on the Dean’s List and received the NUS Global Merit Scholarship and the NUS Overseas College.
“We’ve built some amazing communities all across the region, a validation of the problem we’ve started to solve, but now is when the real work starts.” (Source: Forbes)
Aaron Tan
Company Name: Carro
Company Position: Co-founder and CEO
Year of Birth: 1985
Year founded: 2015
Company Estimated Wealth: $1 Billion
Sector: Auto e-marketplace
Aaron Tan is probably the young person on our list who started his entrepreneurial journey at the age of 13 and sold two companies before turning 21.
Trained as a programmer, Aaron Tan is a venture capitalist by profession.
Tan graduated with a BSc from the School of Information Systems at the Singapore Management University.
He later received a scholarship to study Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University.
He also represented Singapore in international programming competitions globally and was formerly awarded the IT Youth of the Year Award. (Source: Entrepreneur)
Tan has also been involved with South Asia’s leading venture fund, Singtel Innov8 Ventures.
He has also lived in the US and founded Block71 San Fransico (a community of startups) before returning to Singapore.
He founded Carro in 2015 to provide an e-marketplace for the automotive industry.
Carro is now Singapore’s largest Ai-driven used car marketplace with a net worth of billion of dollars.
“You will know whether or not you are able to start a company after some time because you are able to find more people that believe in the journey.” (Source: CNBC)
Chang Wen Lai
Company Name: Ninja Van
Company Position: CEO and Co-founder
Year of Birth: 1987
Year founded: 2014
Company Estimated Wealth: $780 Million
Sector: Delivery service, Transportation
Number 8 position on our list and we are finally out of the billion-dollars-company club.
Chang Wen Lai is the co-founder and CEO of Ninja Van.
Ninja Van is an express delivery service for door-to-door deliveries.
Chang Wen, like many others on the list, has been called a serial entrepreneur for founding more than one startup.
The companies he founded include Dapaola.sg, Get Fitted (an online shirt-fitting tool), Marcella Holdings (a men’s clothing brand) and Ninja Van.
Lai always had a business-oriented mind. During his school days, he would buy used mobile phones and sell them at a higher rate.
He even had a bicycle assembling gig where he’d buy parts of the bicycle and sell the finished product to earn a profit.
Lei has a degree in finance from Singapore Management University. He also worked at Barclays Bank after completing his university education but later left it to work on his startup. (Source: Vulcan Post)
“Ninja Van is essentially the FedEx and UPS in Southeast Asia. We’re not the sexiest business out there. I wish I could tell you that we Uberized everything and are extremely asset-light, and parcel magically moves from one place to the other without anyone lifting a finger, but the reality is UPS or FedEx, we think we may be a bit more tech-forward in terms of how we look at technology.” (Source: Alejandro Cremades)
Lim Wai Mun
Company Name: Doctor Anywhere
Company Position: Founder and CEO
Year of Birth: 1983
Year founded: 2015
Company Estimated Wealth: $96.8 Million
Sector: Healthcare
Lim Wai Mun is the founder and CEO of Doctor Anywhere, an online medical consultancy service based in Singapore.
Mun was born and raised in Singapore and has a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering degree from the National University of Singapore.
The inspiration to start the company came when Mun participated in a charity program where he helped distribute food among the elderly.
On that day, he thought of providing an online medical service to such elderly people who were not able to leave their houses for medical care. (Source: AsiaTechDaily)
Doctor Anywhere is a comprehensive medical service app that stores patients’ medical histories, health reports, and documentation for easy access and consultation.
Not only this, but the app also helps deliver medicine in a matter of hours to the doorstep of patients. (Source: Tatler Asia)
“Look beyond the conventional, look beyond what you know, and be courageous to take the first step. Execution of the idea is key, more so than the idea itself.” (Source: AsiaTechDaily)
Julian Artope
Company Name: Zenyum
Company Position: Co-founder and CEO
Year of Birth: 1985
Year founded: 2018
Company Estimated Wealth: $56 Million
Sector: Healthcare, Dentalcare
Next on the list is an entrepreneur who launched a dental care company without any background in dentistry.
But that is not to say that he did not have any expertise at all.
Artope has been a serial entrepreneur and has experience in building payment, content, and e-commerce companies in Europe, Asia, and Africa.
He has successfully founded and scaled companies based on his tech prowess. He has been a team member of highly successful companies such as Moneybookers/Skrill, StudiVZ (once the largest social network in Germany), and iPrice (South East Asia’s largest online price aggregator). (Source: General Assembly)
He graduated from the European Business School Oestrich-Winkel with a BSc in General Management and Business Law. Later he obtained MBA from INSEAD in Singapore and France.
He has also studied at Yonsei Business School in South Korea.
His latest startup Zenyum is a dental braces company that uses computer technology like 3D scanning, CAD software, and 3D printing to manufacture transparent and cheaper braces.
“I am very conscious about my health because health is the foundation of everything in life. I also wanted to create a visible consumer brand that feels fresh and bold in comparison to what’s out there. We also wanted to shape a category, which we thought was ripe for innovation.” (Source: Tatler Asia)
Rachel Lim
Company Name: Love, Bonito
Company Position: Co-founder & Executive
Chairperson
Year of Birth: 1989
Year founded: 2010
Company Estimated Wealth: $23.3 Million
Sector: E-Commerce, Fashion Retail
Rachel Lim is the co-founder and executive chairperson of Singapore’s famous fashion retailer Love, Bonito.
She founded the company in 2010, in her final year at Nanyang Technological University.
She was just 19 years old when she founded the company.
Lim was featured in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list of young entrepreneurs in 2016. (Source: Forbes)
She was the only female from Singapore to make it to the list in that category for the year.
The brand is an online fashion retail business focused on the Asian female fashion market.
The multimillion brand originated from a blog that sold pre-loved clothes online and with savings from Lim’s mother.
She has redefined the fashion scene in Singapore and Love, Bonito now has a presence in Hong Kong,
Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Australia as well.
“As head of the design, creative, and marketing team, Lim has enlisted local celebrities as brand ambassadors and grown the company’s social media outreach to over 200,000 fans on Facebook and Instagram. Revenue has grown by 25% each year.” (Source: Forbes)
David Brunier
Company Name: The Flash Coffee
Company Position: CEO and Co-founder
Year of Birth: 1991
Year founded: 2020
Company Estimated Wealth: $15 Million
Sector: Foodchain
An Austrian by his birth, David Brunier moved to Singapore in 2017 and ended up revolutionizing the coffee shop industry in the country within a couple of years.
Brunier studied General Management and International Business at EBS Business School Germany.
But it was during his degree that he wanted to quit and start his own business.
“The earlier I start the sooner I’ll succeed” was his thinking behind the idea.
Ultimately, after consultation with his parents, he divided his days and nights between studying and building his own business.
His first company was called Wine Genius – a premium wine company that sourced limited edition wine and marketed them at lower rates than the market was offering.
Later, he joined Foodora before moving to Singapore as chief marketing officer for Foodpanda. (Source: Tatler Asia)
It was here that the idea to launch Flash Coffee hit him.
Coffee in South East Asia is quite expensive. As Brunier puts it, in Indonesia a man’s average salary is worth a couple of cups of an international brand’s coffee. (Source: Robb Report)
Flash Cofee came from his desire to make coffee affordable for everyone. That is why Flash Coffee hit a huge success in Singapore and within two years of its launch, there are 250+ stores of Flash Coffee all over South East Asia. (Source: Men’s-folio)
“It all began with a consumer problem. After working in various leadership capacities in the F&B tech industry, I came to realize that coffee, especially from well-known brands, is extremely expensive and rather inaccessible to the middle class.” (Source: Tatler Asia)
Raena Lim and Chris Halim
Company Name: Style Theory
Company Position: Co-founders
Year of Birth: 1989 (both)
Year founded: 2016
Company Estimated Wealth: $15 Million
Sector: Fashion, E-commerce
The next on the list is not an individual but a couple who are one team.
They both jointly founded Style Theory to solve a common problem every couple faces.
Chris one day looked at his Lim’s wardrobe and wondered why women often complain that they have nothing to wear despite having their wardrobe full of clothes.
And that was when they both realized that they were onto something.
And the result was Style Theory – Southeast Asia’s largest fashion subscription rental platform, where for a monthly fee, you can rent clothes and designer bags and get access to an unlimited closet.
Halim was a senior associate consultant at Bain & Company, a management firm where he dealt with clients from four different South East Asia countries.
Lim graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce in Finance and Organisational Consulting from the University of British Columbia. (Source: Tatler Asia)
She then volunteered as president of the Global Initiatives for Village Empowerment (GIVE) in Kenya.
Style Theory has fast grown into East Asia’s largest and most successful fashion rental platform. It offers all sorts of apparel and accessories including suits and handbags to the users. (Source: Mess Magazine)
“I was looking to work in an organization where I could make an impact for a cause I believe in, so it wasn’t difficult when we took the plunge to start Style Theory, a startup that solves such an obvious problem for women and which can help shape a more sustainable fashion future” ~ Lim (Source: Tatler Asia)
Peter Kristianto Widjaja
Company Name: Hubble
Company Position: Co-founder
Year of Birth: 1994
Year founded: 2016
Company Estimated Wealth: $11.3 Million
Sector: Tech, Construction
Our 13th top entrepreneur in Singapore is another member of the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list for the year 2022. (Source: Forbes)
Peter Kristianto Widjaja has a family background in construction. And that is why he went on and founded Hubble, a digital platform to manage construction projects.
Hubble solves much of construction-related problems by helping to manage various permits, workforce, machinery, and material supply.
“Peter is a brilliant and innovative tech leader. He understands how to lead a startup, always pushing the team to move forward, while at the same time allowing flexibility and encouraging engineers to experiment and innovate.” (Source: LinkedIn)
Benjamin Harris
Company Name: WatchTowr
Company Position: Founder
Year of Birth: 1994
Year founded: 2021
Company Estimated Wealth: $10 Million
Sector: Cyber Security
The next on the list is another young entrepreneur who was a protege at the age of 7 when he discovered his computing passion in the era of windows 95.
By age 12, he was running a small web hosting company almost on his own.
Defying his parents’ ambitions to turn him into a musician, he would skip instrument practice to spend all his time on the computer, sometimes going beyond 4 am.
He landed his first job by hacking into a secure computer which was the task given to him during his job interview. (Source: CIO World Asia)
His company WatchTowr is the fruit of his passion for cyber security.
WatchTowr, the cybersecurity company he founded in 2021, has been deployed by the world’s leading banks, financial services, and insurance companies. (Source: Techno Global)
Harris aims to make WatchTowr a global leader in cyber security.
“I was talking to an investor and we came up with a nice way of describing what we’ve built: It’s a cyber weapon, but painted pink.” (Source: CIO World Asia)
Theodoric Chew
Company Name: Intellect
Company Position: CEO and Co-founder
Year of Birth: 1996
Year founded: 2020
Company Estimated Wealth: $10 Million
Sector: Healthcare
Theodore Chew is a young Singaporean entrepreneur who suffered from anxiety and mental health issues from a very young age.
Being a patient of anxiety from a very young age, Theodore Chew received therapy during his days in secondary school. Source: CNALuxury)
While he found the mental help therapy quite beneficial to him personally, he noticed the gaps and problems that people were facing in the mental health care department.
Motivated by his personal experience with mental health recovery, Chew has founded the Intellect app for mental health therapy.
Intellect is a free mobile app launched in 2020 to help people navigate their mental health problems surrounding relationships, anxiety, and self-esteem.
Intellect helps connect people to therapists online.
Chew has been featured in Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list in 2022.
His app has more than $3 million users and has partnered with Dell, Foodpanda, and Singtel to offer the service of the app as part of their employee benefit programs. (Source: Forbes)
“In Asia, there’s a tendency to associate mental health with things like suicidal thoughts and schizophrenia. The biggest challenge is switching the narrative whereby mental healthcare is not just viewed in the clinical setting but made accessible for everyone.” (Source: CNALuxury)
Nicolas Travis
Company Name: Allies of Skin, Purposeful Skincare by Allies
Company Position: Founder and CEO
Year of Birth: 1988
Year founded: 2016
Company Estimated Wealth: $5 Million
Sector: Skincare
Nicholas Travis grew up in Singapore and studied biomedical and pharmaceutical science for his Bachelor’s degree.
During his degree, he developed a lot of interest in the human skin and its functions.
Also motivated by his personal experience with acne throughout his teen years, Travis saw a career in skincare earlier on.
He later got a master’s degree in international business and the two degrees later helped him actualize his dream of launching a skincare product line. (Source: Allure)
To pursue his passion, Travis first tried his luck by applying to all the major beauty companies but none of them got back to him.
Fed up with his efforts to secure a job, he figured that working as an employee in a company was not meant for him.
This realization brought him to the idea of giving himself a shot at being an entrepreneur and launching his own startup.
Allies of Skin was launched with Travis’ savings and some help from his brother and sister.
Nicholas Travis has been featured in Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list in 2017. (Source: Forbes)
“I quickly realised I was never going to make a million dollars in my job at an ad agency. I always thought I needed the right experience to do it, but I was at a point in my life where I was like, you know what? I really have nothing to lose, so why don’t I just give it a shot? So that’s what I did.” (Source: Allure)
Shavonne Wong
Company Name: Zhiffy Photography & GenV
Company Position: CEO and Co-founder
Year of Birth: 1987
Year founded: 2014
Company Estimated Wealth: Unknown
Sector: Photography, Virtual 3D
Next on our list is another young entrepreneur featured in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia List for 2022. (Source: Forbes)
Shavonne is a brilliant photographer and has won prestigious awards to her credit.
She has worked with Lancôme and Cosmopolitan and has appeared as a guest photographer for Asia’s Next Top Model. (Source: Forbes)
Her photography career started during a two-month break after her internship.
Her interest in her hobby has finally reached a level where she has now earned global recognition for her photography skills.
She has even developed a skill that allows you to convert still images to animation. The technique is known as ‘Living Stills’.
She has partnered with a subsidiary of the Big Apple to share her creations.
She founded Zhiffy Photography, a photography studio based in Singapore.
In parallel with her studio, she has also launched Gen V – an online virtual modeling agency offering 3D human-inspired models to showcase clients’ wearable products.
She has also ventured into the NFT world by selling her 3D virtual animations to various agencies and buyers.
“Colour, shape size, geography… none of that matters, we are united as human beings and our beauty only shines brighter when we come together.” (Source: Wong’s Instagram)
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