Hooi Ling Tan - Founder, GrabTaxi

With companies like Uber and Easy Taxi, Southeast Asia is flooded with ride booking companies and numerous startups.

Yet Malaysia-based ride booking startup GrabTaxi is gaining traction and was recently named one of Southeast Asia’s unicorn startups, with an estimated billion-dollar valuation.

Hooi Ling Tan, former McKinsey consultant, co-founded GrabTaxi with Anthony Tan, one of her classmates at Harvard.

The companies aim was to connect customers directly to taxi drivers via a mobile app. So they came up with a business plan and were the runners-up in Harvard Business School’s 2011 Business Plan Contest.

Launched in 2012 in Malaysia, the app is now available in 21 cities across the Southeast Asian region and the company has raised USD 340 million in funding so far.