As we come to the close of year 2016, it’s fitting that we take a step back and recalculate our efforts in anticipation of all that lies ahead. While the year started out somewhat sluggish in Malaysia’s budding field of equity crowdfunding (ECF), and this is to be expected considering that most of the country’s SC-approved ECF platforms only began taking their first baby steps to launch various campaigns early in the year, things started picking up for CrowdPlus.asia in mid 2016.

Here’s a visual recap of the entire year 2016 in equity crowd funding—a testament of its validity in today’s digital age and potential to help more innovative startups and SMEs from various industries raise funds, scale their companies, and drive the economic wheel of Malaysia forward.

We cap this article with personal opinions from industry leaders who have fought hard in their own capacities to improve the role, effectiveness and awareness of equity crowdfunding in Malaysia’s capital market. According to Bryan Chung, COO of CrowdPlus.asia: “Based on the increasing numbers that we see [refer to Infographic above], the signs are encouraging for companies across various industries. It indicates two things: that our continuous and persistent efforts to educate the public are starting to bear fruit, and a paradigm shift is occuring in the market where instead of investing a lot of money in a single safe investment, a rising number of investors are spreading smaller amounts of money across a diverse portfolio of private investments based on calculated risk-taking measures.”

Regional Director of RE/MAX Malaysia, Andre Keller shares his thoughts on why their real estate company chose to adopt equity crowd funding: “The banks won’t give a new company any overdraft for working capital. To set up all our structures in a highly regulated market and foreign economic environment, it somehow takes longer to break even. Our shareholders and I were looking for a bridging loan to no success, till ECF came into the picture.”

COO of Green Lagoon Technology, Raymond Cheah adds his unique perspective for a distinctively new and challenging industry: “Our [renewable energy] business isn’t the regular run-of-the-mill kind of business, and many of the representatives we met from banks, financial institutions and even VCs couldn’t understand the business nor grasp the risk profile of the industry we’re in. Most of them would rather just stick to the standard property- and land-type deals, which they’re comfortable with in terms of returns, and with minimal risks… ECF gave us a platform to promote who we are and what we’re doing, and thus opened the door for us to explore non-traditional funding avenues… There are people out there who care enough about the environment (since our business is built on that premise), have some money to invest in companies, and who would like to look at other business opportunities—and it was through ECF that we managed to connect with like-minded investors.”

Source: http://blog.crowdplus.asia/year-in-equity-crowdfunding-2016-recap-by-crowdplus-asia/, 28 Dec 2016