Tatseng Chiam (OS 2005) is a co-founder of Tandem, a tech startup building the future of mobility outside big cities through high quality, efficient, sustainable transport.
'Tandem was founded with a mission to ensure affordable and reliable transport for all, regardless of where you live. If you live outside a big city without a car, it can be difficult to access employment opportunities, affordable supermarkets, education, social connections and more. By working with existing local taxi, minibus and coach companies, we turn their vehicles into tech-enabled, low-cost, shared shuttle services. Through our app, passengers are matched into shared vehicles and can book and pay for their seat.
I grew up in a transport-focused household - my father spent most of his career scaling up operations for Mercedes-Benz in Brunei. Ironically, I don't own a driving license, the smell of petrol makes me nauseous, and I've lived in many places where public transport is poor and it's difficult to get around if you don't have a car. I'm part of the 20% of households in the UK (and many other countries) that don't have access to a car.
I continue to look back at my time at Sevenoaks fondly. I was fortunate that some of Tandem’s earliest financial backers are members of IC Global, an angel syndicate comprising of International Centre alumni. Since launching live operations in 2019, we've experienced multiple years of 10 times revenue growth, and will shortly close an institutional seed funding round to accelerate growth further.'