PETALING JAYA: Pitch Platform Sdn Bhd via its equity crowd funding (ECF) platform pitchIN will soft launch its secondary market called pitchIN Secondary Trading Market (PSTX) this week and expects to host its first deal on its Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) platform in September.
Co-founders Sam Shafie and Kashminder Singh – who are also CEO and chief strategy officer respectively – disclosed this in an exclusive interview with SunBiz.
In March, the company was granted approval by the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) for its secondary market and was announced as one of two IEO platforms in the country. It will pioneer Malaysia’s first approved digital assets and tokens fundraising platform.
Kashminder said PSTX is ready and its soft launch is scheduled for Wednesday, albeit dependent on several factors as it will need to upload data on its investors, companies as well as inform the regulators.
“But that’s the target, August 30 will be the soft launch, but the actual trading will start on Sept 13,” he added.
Investors will only be able to start trading activities in the following month as they need time to familiarise themselves with the market and the new exchange.
“So imagine, on August 30, I open the doors to the market and you can come in, have a look and you can prepare your money to buy or sell and check your balances ... then on Sept 13, you can put in your order and the market starts,” Kashminder said, adding that investors can access the exchange via its website, which is a unified platform.
Sam shared that for a start, PSTX will showcase 10 to 15 companies, that are made up of small and medium-sized enterprises and startups. In addition, the exchange will only be trading twice weekly, on Wednesday and Thursday.
“Its a start. One or two years down the road, when the market becomes more matured, then it could potentially be five days a week just like Bursa Malaysia”.
On the difference between PSTX and Bursa, Kashminder said the latter is an active trading platform where most investors “go in speculatively”, whereas the former is geared more towards “patient capital”.
“Patient capital, a bit longer term investing, you’re investing for the long-term growth of the company, so you get your best returns only when the company can grow significantly bigger,” he said.
Kashminder explained that with the launch, he expects more companies to sign up on pitchIN as it will have another platform or market to raise funds in the future.
“More companies are going to come to us because they are able to tell the investors, you can come and raise money on pitchIN ... there’s an option later on ... so I think that brings a very strong liquidity option to the market,” he said.
Sam opined that it is normal for potential investors to be careful in investing in a company in its early stages.
However, if the company does well, potential investors will be persuaded to invest because “all that early stage risk has already been addressed”, and may even be able “to see its path towards potentially even an acquisition by PE (private equity) or an IPO (initial public offering) through buying shares in PSTX and are able to invest in its growth”.
