VMO Rocks Sdn Bhd (VMO), an event venues instant booking platform company, announced today that the company has successfully completed its first successful equity crowdfunding campaign, raising a total of RM500,000 from investors.

The company raised a total of RM250,000 through equity crowdfunding platform CrowdPlus.asia in just four days, making it the eighth successful CrowdPlus.asia campaign so far. The remaining RM250,000 was raised from a co-investment deal with Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd.

VMO made its official debut in March 2016, offering Malaysians the ability to book event venues and services instantly via their website: VMO.Rocks. 

VMO aims to revolutionise the way people discover, compare and book event spaces. The online events platform matches users, whether personal or corporate, with the right venue(s) for their event.

Throughout the campaign which began from March 20th this year, a total of 13 public investors participated in the campaign which took the company to their fundraising target in a span of 4 days. 

Vincent also mentioned that the round was slightly oversubscribed prior to the end of the campaign. VMO offered 14.3% equity to investors, valuing the company at approximately RM3.5Million.

With the new injection of capital, VMO intends to use the funds to further expand the business in Klang Valley, Penang, Ipoh, Malacca and Johor Bahru. Their aim is to increase the number of establishments to 1,500 from their current listing of 900.

Andrew Tan, Chief Executive Officer of CrowdPlus.asia, sees VMO as a business model that is highly scalable and looks forward to their expansion plans.

“There are many underutilised facilities and event spaces in Malaysia where owners simply do not have the right channel to market themselves effectively. VMO’s brilliant and effective platform offers free listing for space owners, at the same time gaining access to thousands of users who are constantly searching,” mentioned Andrew Tan, CEO of Crowdplus.asia.

In support of the co-investment deal, Cradle Fund’s Chief Investment officer, Juliana Jan also mentioned that Cradle has chosen to support VMO in its efforts to bridge the gap between potential customers and venue owners as the nature of VMO’s business is viable for the F&B industry in Malaysia. It is also a new and unchartered territory to help boost the ecosystem for Malaysian tech start-ups.

According to Vincent, VMO received RM39 million in inquiry value in December 2016, compared to RM9.5 million in 2015. The value of bookings also increased from RM223,000 in 2015 to RM1.19 million in 2016, a growth of over 5 fold.

Equity crowdfunding, which is finding its footing in Malaysia, allows businesses to leverage various digital platforms and social media to efficiently raise capital. The Securities Commission Malaysia became the first in ASEAN to introduce equity crowdfunding licenses, and CrowdPlus.asia, is one of its registered operators.