MyCIF co-invested US$40mil in financing campaigns

By Digital News Asia April 29, 2021

Co-invested in 5,349 ECF, P2P financing campaigns, benefitting 1,197 micro SMEs
MyCIF generated positive net returns on capital as of end of 2020

MyCIF co-invested US$40mil in financing campaigns THE Malaysia Co-Investment Fund (MyCIF) has co-invested US$40.2 million (RM165 million) in 5,349 equity crowdfunding (ECF) and peer-to-peer financing (P2P) campaigns, which the company claimed to have benefitted 1,197 Malaysian micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) at the end of 2020.

[RM1 = US$0.243]

Since its October 2019 inception, these co-investments were deployed alongside private sector investments, which totalled RM431 million, MyCIF said in a statement.

MyCIF said the amount was larger than the given allocation of RM100 million is due to continuous re-investment of P2P notes, fixed deposit interest and ECF dividends, it said.

MyCIF is a fund administered by the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) on behalf of the Ministry of Finance (MOF).

According to the SC, MyCIF has also generated a positive net return on capital as at the end of 2020. The SC reported the fund’s activities and performance up to end December 2020 in MyCIF’s inaugural annual report, released on April 26.

MyCIF co-invested US$40mil in financing campaigns “The SC supports and encourages new digital financial innovations and MyCIF has been successful in assisting our startups and micro SMEs to meet their funding needs in this challenging period of post pandemic economic recovery,” said Syed Zaid Albar, chairman of SC.

“MyCIF enhances the liquidity of our ECF and P2P market to provide financing to this critical segment of the Malaysian economy, while at the same time, crowd in a larger pool of investors.

“This has helped micro SMEs get funding and swiftly deploy them for their business needs.”

MyCIF was set up as part of Belanjawan 2019 with an initial RM50 million allocation to co-invest in micro SMEs alongside private investors via ECF and P2P platforms.

Subsequently, MyCIF received an additional RM50 million allocation as part of Belanjawan 2020, with an additional RM10 million specifically for social enterprises, it said.

The MyCIF Annual Report, as well as details of the scheme, can be found here.