Most founders don't know this: Malaysia is one of the few countries in the world where a company can legally raise capital from the public by issuing digital tokens — through a regulated channel, with a rulebook, and now with a proven path all the way to secondary trading. Here is how the route actually works.
The two doors
All public token fundraising runs through platforms registered with the Securities Commission under its Guidelines on Digital Assets. There are two, and they serve different issuers:
- pitchIN (Pitch Platforms Sdn Bhd) — Token Crowdfunding (TCF). The natural door for consumer and platform businesses issuing utility tokens: rewards, memberships, access, fee discounts. If your token is part of your product, start here.
- KLDX (Kapital DX Sdn Bhd) — Initial Exchange Offerings of asset-backed tokens: tokenised equity, fixed income and funds, including Shariah-compliant structures. If your raise looks like a capital-markets instrument on new rails, this is your door.
There is no third door. Selling tokens to the Malaysian public outside a registered platform is an offence carrying up to RM10 million in fines and 10 years' imprisonment.
The numbers that define your raise
- Raise up to RM100 million, capped at 20 times shareholders' funds within any 12-month period.
- Issuers need at least RM500,000 in paid-up capital.
- You can take money from retail, sophisticated and angel investors — retail investors within prescribed investment limits, which in practice gives you a wide, small-cheque base.
The platform is your gatekeeper, not just your storefront: it must assess your "digital value proposition," scrutinise your whitepaper disclosures and complete due diligence before your offering goes live. Budget real time for this — the vetting is the point of the regime.
What the completed deals teach
BidNow (pitchIN, 2024) — Malaysia's first public token raise. The auction platform offered its $BID utility token and hit its full RM10 million target from 469 investors in roughly eight weeks, after clearing a RM5 million minimum. Lesson: a working consumer business with a token that does something real can raise at genuine scale from the crowd.
Integra Healthcare (KLDX, 2024) — the RM150 million i-INT Programme, a tokenised Shariah-compliant fixed-income offering with a profit rate of up to 10% per annum, whose first RM29 million tranche was fully subscribed by institutions. Lesson: on the KLDX side, tokenisation is winning over exactly the conservative money you'd expect to be last.
The $BID listing (2025) — the part that completes the picture. BidNow's token later listed on Hata Global and Coinstore under the pitchIN–Hata partnership, making it the first Malaysian IEO token to reach exchange trading. Investors in a regulated Malaysian token raise now have something almost no other market offers them: a regulated exit.
Honest caveats
Only one public TCF campaign has completed so far — the pipeline is younger than the framework, and a second deal will tell us more than the first did. Disclosure obligations are closer to an IPO prospectus than a whitepaper-as-marketing exercise. And your token's utility must survive a sceptical committee, not a bull market.
Where the association fits
If you are weighing a token raise — or deciding between equity crowdfunding and TCF — we can point you to the platforms, the precedents and members who have been through the process. Write to us at [email protected], and check who is licensed at any time on our regulated entities registry.
References
- Securities Commission Malaysia — Guidelines on Digital Assets
- SC — "SC Registers Two Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) Operators" (23 Mar 2022)
- Fintech News Malaysia — "Malaysia's first token crowdfunding completed" (22 Aug 2024)
- Fintech News Malaysia — "Kapital DX debuts RM150 million tokenised Shariah-compliant offering" (2 Apr 2024)
- Fintech News Malaysia — "$BID lists on Hata Global and Coinstore" (6 Jan 2025)