Green Lagoon Technology Sdn Bhd (GLT) has now become the first bio-based equity crowdfunded company in Malaysia to have a successful exit for a group of its investors since it raised RM800,000 (an oversubscription of 200 percent) through CrowdPlus.asia’s equity crowdfunding platform in 2016.
GLT is a one-stop solutions provider for biogas harvesting, storage, treatment, utilisation and carbon reduction monitoring for palm oil mills in Malaysia and Indonesia, and is also a trigger project owner for the Bioeconomy Transformation Programme (BTP) under Malaysian Bioeconomy Development Corporation (Bioeconomy Corporation). Following the successful ECF campaign in 2016, GLT used the crowdfunded capital to increase its shareholding in one of the power-generation projects. Some of the crowdfunding investors eventually converted into permanent shareholders of GLT whilst some of them were bought out by GLT between September 2018 and October 2019. The investors received profitable returns on their investment as well as annual six percent pay-outs from 2017 to 2019.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of CrowdPlus.Asia, Max KS Teh said the investors were pleased with GLT’s business performance and dividend payment which has been promptly paid every year. “GLT has built a very strong and sound business model over the last few years which in turn attracts even more investors looking to invest into companies like GLT. All this is possible with the right platform and ecosystem which brings quality investors to fund innovative businesses, a philosophy which is entrenched in CrowdPlus.asia’s mission of mixing with the “RIGHT CROWD”. CrowdPlus.asia looks forward to replicating this success with other biotech companies and indeed with other industries as well. It is our collective hope that more companies under Bioeconomy Corporation will explore this funding method.”
According to Bioeconomy Corporation’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Mohd Shuhaizam Mohd Zain, the organisation will continue to work together with GLT and Crowdplus.asia to move Malaysia’s biogas industry towards achieving its sustainable development goals while contributing to the circular economy.
“Bioeconomy Corporation plans to organise educational engagement programmes to link players from the government sector, financing institutions, and biogas industry so we can come up with policies and programmes that are geared towards increasing the adoption rate of biogas technology in Malaysia, and also to come up with more funding options that are viable and accessible for biogas technology providers like GLT to further expand their business.”
vHe added that Bioeconomy Corporation has identified 16 biogas/renewable companies that have the potential to benefit from ECF. “By working together with Crowdplus.asia, we hope that more companies are able to experience the success and viability of ECF in addition to traditional sources of funding so they can strengthen their business moving forward,” he said.
Director of GLT, Raymond Cheah said, “We are most grateful to CrowdPlus.Asia for daring to take a dive with us, as the biogas industry was still at its infancy in 2016. With the support and help of Bioeconomy Corp, pushing the biogas agenda in the background, the biogas industry is only going to be more prominent in times to come. While the biogas projects are proving to be reasonably lucrative, as shown by the numbers achieved by the many projects that GLT own or co-own, financing remains a major bugbear. We need cheaper sources of funds to make the projects viable. Our industry not only helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the palm oil industry, we also create many rural technical job opportunities, which would otherwise gravitate to urban areas.”
In September 2019, the Securities Commission highlighted the efforts of GLT in combating climatic challenges in the recent Inaugural Regional Conference in Climatic Change, which was officiated by the Governor of Bank Negara Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur.