Yesterday news of Netccentric’s coming IPO came out so I’m finally able to talk about what I’ve been working on for the past 9 months. I feel really relieved that I can finally talk about the IPO and I feel excited about it. At the same time though I feel a little tired. Exhausted from the long hours of work to prepare for this. I haven’t been on a holiday for a year now.
So why did I go through all this?
Let me first bring you back to somewhere in the middle of last year.
Netccentric was having a great 2014. As a company we were growing rapidly and hitting new records. We were really pumped and excited but as Ming and I sat down we weren’t looking anymore at 2014. We were looking at the years after that. How were we going to continue growing at the pace we want to? How do we grow Dayre?
We decided that we had to raise money and because we have never found any VCs or private equity funds that we could get comfortable with we decided the only way to do it was to go for an IPO. We chose Australia because there were a lot of Asian companies with successful listings on the ASX and we felt that the investors there have a good understanding and appetite for technology stocks.
So our long road to IPO began.
People used to tell me that IPO is a tough process so I went in with the expectations that it’ll be really really tough. 9 months later, how tough this was went beyond my expectations. It was fucking tough. There are so many things involved that I think I could write one whole blog entry about How to IPO and what it takes from start to end (note that I’m at the last lap but not at the end yet).
In short though, the next 9 months involved finding a lead manager/underwriter that believed in us, finding accountants and law firms and then going through a very painful due diligence process. I learn that in an IPO, everything in a prospectus MUST be accurate. You can’t inflate or mis-state anything. If you say we made A$11 million we have to have it audited. If we say we have over 950,000 blogs, we have to prove it.
After 9 months of due diligence, conference calls, presentations to cornerstone investors we were finally ready to lodge our prospectus. That day of lodging was on the 25th of May 2015. On the 26th of May as soon as our prospectus went public, it was covered by the press. We were covered in the Australian Financial Review and closer to home on Channel News Asia and some other news channels.
If all goes well we expect to be listed on the ASX in a month.
Where are we today?
Today we stand in a great position. Netccentric as a company hit over A$11 million in revenue in 2014. Our revenue had grown 35% and profits up 400% from the year before. The IPO is set to raise us up to A$12.5 million with cornerstone investors already taking up A$7.5 million. The cornerstone investors who are betting on us include Kevin Tsai (The President of Want Want China Media Group), Tan Sri Pang Tee Chew of Mamee, my uncle Datuk Tony Tiah and KSK.
Netccentric is the result of all the work of Ming and I and the Nuffies for the past years. The Netccentric Group includes Nuffnang, ChurpChurp, Reelity, Ripplewerkz and even Dayre.
Netccentric will have a valuation of A$50 million (approximately RM140 million). The company Ming and I started with RM150,000 years ago is today worth RM140 million. Ming and I think we’re just getting started and we’re putting our money where our mouth is. Neither of us will be cashing out a cent from the money raised in this IPO. All because we believe in one thing that Ming always said. That “The best is yet to be”.
You can read one of the news articles about our IPO here.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space