Most people know Ninja Van today as one of Southeast Asia’s biggest delivery networks, but the company’s origins are far more surprising. It didn’t begin as a logistics business at all. It began as a fashion experiment.
Back in 2014, three friends in Singapore believed they were launching a promising online menswear brand, not laying the foundation for a logistics revolution. Fresh out of corporate jobs, Lai Chang Wen, then in his late twenties, teamed up with Shaun Chong and Tan Boxian to create a sleek fashion label. Orders trickled in, and for a moment, everything looked perfect.
Getting customers was the easy part. Delivering to them was the real nightmare.
Couriers were slow. Tracking barely existed. Parcels disappeared without explanation. The region’s logistics system simply wasn’t built for the rapid rise of e-commerce.
What started as excitement quickly turned into daily frustration until one off-hand comment changed the course of their lives.
Lai famously said: “How hard can logistics be? Just get some vans, hire drivers and deliver on time.”
The Birth of Ninja Van
That impulsive remark, half frustration and half naive optimism, became the seed of Ninja Van, a business that would grow from a single second-hand van into a regional logistics powerhouse.
In just over a decade, Ninja Van now moves around two million parcels a day across Southeast Asia and supports hundreds of thousands of merchants through its domestic and cross-border networks. By 2025, it is no longer just another delivery service. It has become one of the quiet engines powering the region’s e-commerce boom, and Malaysia now sits at the heart of its next major chapter.
When the founders first bought that second-hand van, they were not trying to build a unicorn. They were simply trying to solve their own delivery problem. For a while, their two ventures, the fashion label and the small delivery operation, ran side by side. It seemed logical because one business sold clothes and the other delivered them.
But reality forced a decision.
The fashion brand never truly took off. The logistics side, however, grew faster than they could have imagined. Instead of clinging to their original dream, the trio made a choice many first-time entrepreneurs struggle with. They killed their first idea to save the better one.
Marcella, the fashion label, slowly faded away. Ninja Van became the main act.
That pivot, recognising the stronger path and having the courage to walk away from the weaker one, became one of the most important decisions in their entrepreneurial journey. It paved the way for Ninja Van’s rapid regional expansion, attracting global investors and strategic partners who believed in the company’s bold and tech-driven vision.
The ‘Day Zero’ Mindset
Lai no longer sleeps at the office or drives delivery vans through the night, but his philosophy hasn’t changed. In interviews, he often talks about maintaining a “day zero” spirit; running the company as if it is just starting, no matter how big it gets.
For him, “day zero” means staying hungry, staying fast, staying paranoid, and staying close to the ground. It means not becoming comfortable just because the company has scale, funding or brand recognition.
That mindset became even more important as the logistics landscape shifted. After the Covid-19 boom, e-commerce growth softened, price wars intensified and profitability became harder. Ninja Van had to rethink its strategy, streamline costs and expand into higher-margin solutions like B2B restocking and cold-chain logistics.
Malaysia: From Growth Market to Strategic Engine
Most Malaysians see Ninja Van as the red-branded courier that shows up at their gate. But behind the scenes, Malaysia has quietly become one of the company’s most important markets.
Since entering Malaysia in 2015, Ninja Van has grown aggressively. By 2023, its revenue crossed RM860 million, supported by a massive infrastructure network that includes a 260,000 sq ft sorting hub in Shah Alam, more than 160 hubs nationwide, thousands of pick-up points and a fleet of around 7,000 vehicles.
This scale is not accidental. Malaysia has become a key node in Ninja Van’s regional strategy, a market where e-commerce is growing steadily and where SMEs form the backbone of the digital economy.
But the real story is not just about last-mile delivery. It is about how Ninja Van Malaysia positions itself as a logistics ecosystem, not just a courier.
Beyond Parcels
According to Malaysia CEO Lin Zheng, the company’s strategy is simple but powerful: don’t just fight on price; build an ecosystem that businesses can plug into.
Ninja Van Malaysia today provides more than “pick up and send” services. It offers fulfilment, warehousing, distribution and digital tools, making it closer to a full-stack logistics partner than a traditional courier.
For SMEs, especially online sellers, this matters. Instead of juggling multiple providers, one for storage, one for picking and packing, one for delivery and another for cross-border, they can plug into a single end-to-end platform.
In 2025, Ninja Van Malaysia made one of its biggest moves yet: launching 44 new international delivery lanes, connecting local businesses to key markets across Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific, North America and Latin America.
With these routes, Malaysian sellers can now ship directly to international destinations, often at more than 50% lower cost than traditional cross-border options.
According to Jeremy Hong, regional vice president of Ninja Van Cross-Border, the expansion is timely and necessary.
“The world is no longer out of reach for Malaysian brands. With the launch of these 44 new international lanes, we are offering a practical and cost-effective way for local businesses to enter new markets, build a global customer base, and grow confidently.
For years, many Malaysian SMEs were held back by high shipping fees, complicated customs processes and limited logistics infrastructure. With these new lanes, those barriers begin to fall. Businesses can now test new markets, reach global customers and scale beyond Malaysia’s borders using a single integrated platform.
What Entrepreneurs Can Learn from Ninja Van
Beyond the numbers, Ninja Van’s story carries powerful lessons.
It started with a simple pain point: “Our deliveries are a mess.” It survived because the founders were willing to pivot early, quickly and without ego. It grew because it invested in technology before it was fashionable. And it continues to evolve because the founders never allowed themselves to become comfortable.
For every Malaysian entrepreneur, the message is clear; sometimes your biggest opportunity is hiding inside your biggest frustration. Your breakout idea may not be your first one. And your fastest growth may only come after your earliest failure.
Ninja Van shows that failure is not the opposite of success, it is often the beginning of it. A failed fashion brand became a logistics giant. A delivery problem became a billion-ringgit opportunity. And a second-hand van became the backbone of Southeast Asia’s e-commerce economy.
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