Universiti Malaysia Terengganu partners pitchIN to boost fundraising for its spin-offs

• Plans to engage UMT alumni to invest in the companies
• PitchIN’s ambition to get as many universities as possible on board

Universiti Malaysia Terengganu’s (UMT) wholly-owned subsidiary UMT Jaya Holdings Sdn Bhd (UMTJ) signed a Memorandum of Agreement with Pitch Platforms Sdn Bhd (pitchIN) last week to help UMT’s spin-offs to raise funds through the equity crowdfunding (ECF) platform.

“While pitchIN intends to onboard every local university, UMT is the first to formally agree to collaborate with us, focusing on driving investments stemming from research done by UMT lecturers and students into spin-off companies,” Sam Shafie, CEO of PitchIN said.

With universities having their own internal processes, several that pitchIN has engaged with are in the final stages of agreeing to a similar partnership, such as Universiti Malaya, Universiti Sains Malaysia, and Universiti Teknologi Petronas.

Dr Ahmad Ramzi Mohamad Zubir, CEO of UMTJ said that the university’s intellectual property portfolio comprises patents, industrial designs, innovation utilities, trademarks, proprietary rights, and trade secrets that are ripe for commercialisation. In 2023 alone, UMT registered a total of 60 intellectual property assets, including 40 products as proprietary rights, 13 as trade secrets, four registered patents, with the three others under other categorizations of intellectual property.

As is common throughout academia in Malaysia, such university intellectual assets remain vastly underutilized and not generating commercial returns, representing a loss for UMT and the country as a whole.

“Therefore, partnering and collaborating with universities makes a lot of sense, and we've been trying to do this for the longest time, but the bureaucracy that we had to face was very cumbersome until I met Ramzi,” Sam said.

PitchIN-UMT partner campaign and targeting alumni as potential investors

Through this agreement, UMTJ will serve as a bridge linking UMT's spin-offs with potential investors via the pitchIN platform.

“Those spin-off companies will later be featured on our microsites (partner campaigns) on PitchIN, where partners like the university will curate the companies they select for fundraising on the platform,” Sam said.

In the case of UMT, all spin-offs will be housed under its own microsite. PitchIN also plans to collaborate with UMT to engage its alumni and expose them to investment opportunities coming from their alma mater.

The firstgroup of companies UTM is considering consist of spin-offs focusing on renewable energy, green hydrogen, and oil and gas industry.

A company focused on oil & gas, consisting of two researchers who developed an oil-absorbent material was selected to be the first candidate for listing. Declining to identify the company, Ramzi claimed that founders are among the top 1% researchers in the world.

“We’re going to pitch for funding and also go for the secondary market as well,” he added, referring to pitchIN’s secondary ECF trading market (PSTX) which went live on July 10, which  allows people to trade shares of companies that have raised funding on the platform.

Sam said, “We’ll try to get the company listed before the end of Q3 or start of Q4, as we’re going to start our due diligence and compliance on the company soon. We’re also targeting institutional investors to hopefully invest in this company.”

As part of the MoA, UMT's spin-offs will go through Fundraising Accelerator (FA), an entrepreneurship program launched by pitchIN Academy in October 2022. FA will provide the necessary guidance and skills required for its spinoff founders to successfully raise funds.

What's next for pitchIN 

With over 177 successful ECF campaigns and more than US$69.6 million (RM325 million) raised for issuers in Malaysia, what’s next for pitchIN, industry observers have wondered.

“Well, we have no immediate plans for listing as we still have a long way to go,” said Sam, sharing that the revenue target for this year is US$429,000 (RM2 million).