At the pitchIN ECF Report 2018, CEO Sam Shafie revealed that the company has retained their position as the leading equity crowdfunding operator in 2018, in terms of successful campaigns raised.

The number of successful deals done by the entire ECF industry dipped from 22 campaigns in 2017 to 14 campaigns in 2018, which pitchIN attributes to the public attention turning to the high-stakes election that captured Malaysia’s attention since the beginning of the year.

In fact, Sam Shafie, CEO of pitchIN, told Fintech News that the platform purposefully avoided listing companies before May as they waited for the tension of GE14 to die down; a decision which Sam opines, proved effective.

Perhaps in parts thanks to this decision to step back, pitchIN was able to maintain a 100% success record, and their first successful company to raise funds on their platform last year did it to the tune of RM5 million. pitchIN also saw another 8 deals run successfully on its platform, which according to them, represents 75% of the market share for ECF deals in 2018.

By the end of 2018, pitchIN saw 1,200 investments on its platform, 55% of them done by retail investors, and a significant number coming from repeat investors.

pitchIN was also the platform hosted the successful funding of the P2P financing platform Fundaztic, which made headlines for being fully funded in just 38 minutes.

Sam hopes that companies will think of pitchIN as the go-to platform when they think about equity crowdfunding, and added that:

“Once the RM50 million [co-investment] fund that the government wants to set up is up and running, the 7 platforms licensed by the Securities Commission will now have a chance to attract some of those funds into their platform. You’ll see much more activity in terms of fundraising.”

“So for us, it’s all about attracting good companies because in the end, be it the government or regular investors, it’s all about companies.”

Kashminder Singh, Chiefs Strategy Officer of pitchIN opines that:

“The challenge now is to continue to expand the investor base. We need to get more people to get interested in investing into companies [on equity crowdfunding]. Yes, we’ve got 1,200 investments last year. One guy has done 15 investments, but there will always be a limit as to how much they can do at one time.”

“It’s fair for someone who has done 2 to 3 investments to wait for a while, to build up a bit more capital, so we have to grow our investor base, and that’s why we’re looking to reach out to as many markets as possible, speaking as many languages as possible and also those outside of Klang Valley.”

“We also welcome competition. No industry can survive with only one player, and there needs to be competition to grow the market. I hope that other ECF platforms do well so that there’s a genuine industry, and I look forward to them also launching deals. But we’re also quietly confident that we’ll do well.

The company is also looking to launch a Secondary market for ECF once the Securities Commission releases its secondary market framework, in a bid to provide their investors with liquidity, and perhaps even attract more traditional investors into the space.