Thinesh Kumar and Lakshman Das of Lapasar on disrupting Malaysia's procurement processes

In August 2019, KrASIA — the pan-Asian technology and business publication — featured Lapasar founders Thinesh Kumar and Lakshman Das in its Startup Stories series. The interview offers an early window into the convictions and market analysis that shaped what has since become Malaysia's largest B2B procurement marketplace.

The Founding Insight

Thinesh and Lakshman identified a structural problem in Malaysian B2B commerce: procurement processes at most enterprises were still largely manual, relationship-dependent, and opaque. Buyers were locked into preferred-vendor lists, lacked pricing transparency, and had no reliable way to discover better suppliers. Lapasar was built to solve exactly this — by creating a digital marketplace where enterprise buyers could source competitively, with full transaction visibility and fulfilment accountability.

Ambitions Beyond Malaysia

Even in 2019, the founders were candid about their regional ambitions. The blueprint they described — platform-plus-logistics, enterprise-first, fulfilment-owned — has proven durable. The RM3 billion transaction milestone, the Series B raise, and the Forbes Asia 100 to Watch recognition all flow from the model articulated in this early interview.

Read more about Lapasar's enterprise marketplace or explore careers on the team building the next chapter.