MONEYTREE YES CHALLENGE “BIG PITCH” EVENT – TURNING YOUNG ASPIRING ENTREPRENEURS’ DREAMS INTO REALITIES… at MoneyTree AsiaPac

Petaling Jaya, August 11^th, 2009 – MoneyTree conducted its Young Entrepreneur Startup (YES) Challenge “BIG PITCH” event last Saturday at Bangunan Bakti Siti Hasmah, TTDI. The event, which was sponsored by Taylor’s University College, was attended by more than 130 people consisting guests from the media, YES Challenge Partners, YES Challenge Advisory Panel and invited guests.

The “BIG PITCH” is the final stage of the YES Challenge, where the TOP 5 teams are required to present their ideas to a group of more than 100 private investors and pitch for start-up funds amounting to a maximum of RM 25,000 per team to allow their business ideas to take off. This is the first time a crowd – sourcing initiative of this scale has ever been attempted in Malaysia.

Mr Nazrin Hassan, CEO of Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd stated, “Some of the presentations and pitching by these young aspiring entrepreneurs were amazing, and quite a few of them surpassed the quality of those who are pitching for bigger funds in the market. I think MoneyTree has done a great job in setting up this platform to allow Young Aspiring Entrepreneurs to turn their dreams into reality.”

Dr Sivapalan, Special Advisor to Technopreneur Association Malaysia (TeAM) added, “Looking at the quality of their business ideas, the commitment and hard work they have put in, and the Enthusiasm they have displayed, I must say that my faith in the Malaysian youths has been restored once again.”

Guests can “invest” in the teams by pledging financial support for the new start-ups. Guests were exceedingly enthusiastic about investing in these new, promising start ups, as they now have the opportunity to play the role of Mini – Venture Capitalists. Of the total solicited by the 5 teams, an excess of RM 97,000 in commitment and pledges was secured by the YES Challenge teams during the “BIG PITCH” event, with more pledges coming in by this week.

The TOP 5 teams that pitched for funds during the “BIG PITCH” event are Entrée, TryThisOut!, Student Media, Fitness In Training and Buttered Toast. These teams will now implement their business ideas in the following 15 weeks. At the end of the 15-week period, if their business venture makes profit, or is poised to make profits in the future, they will be flipped over to the next phase, where they would be pitching for a maximum of RM 75,000 to scale their business ideas up. These teams would also be brought on road shows to participating Universities and Colleges to inspire the next generation of Young Entrepreneurs. The aim is to make them the next Malaysian Entrepreneur Idol to serve as role models to the young Aspiring Entrepreneurs.

Participants of the MoneyTree YES Challenge consist of students from more than 10 Universities / Colleges nationwide, which include, among others, Taylor’s University College, Open University Malaysia (OUM), Nilai University College, Kolej IKIP, Kuala Lumpur Metropolitan University College, Tunku Abdul Rahman College, University Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Universiti Malaya (UM), Nottingham University and many others.

MoneyTree’s event partner, Taylor’s University College provided facilities and financial support for this event to be successfully carried out.

For further information regarding the YES Challenge “BIG PITCH” event and how you can play a role in helping these young aspiring Entrepreneurs launch their business ideas into the market, you can contact uV at uvwong@moneytree.my / +6012 293 5116.

About the MONEYTREE™ YES Challenge:

The MoneyTree YES Challenge is the First and Only Business challenge in Malaysia that requires participants to not only come up with a business idea, submit their executive summaries to a panel of judges, get judged by a group of judges, but to also IMPLEMENT those business ideas by soliciting funds from private investors. Ultimately, if the teams’ business ideas are commercially viable and scalable, they would be channeled to Government Funding to help bring their business to the next level.