Item 1A: Risk Factors
in this Annual Report. These risks include, among others, that:
· The market for our ZCITY platform is new and unproven;
· There is no assurance that the Company will be profitable;
PART I
Item 1. Business
Our Mission
Our mission is to bring together the worlds of online e-commerce and offline physical retailers; widening consumer choice and rewarding loyalty, while sustaining and enhancing our earning potential.
Our Company
We have created an innovative online-to-offline (“O2O”) e-commerce platform business model offering consumers and merchants instant rebates and affiliate cashback programs, while providing a seamless e-payment solution with rebates in both e-commerce (i.e., online) and physical retailers/merchant (i.e., offline) settings.
Our proprietary product is an internet application (or “App”) branded “ZCITY App”, which was developed through our wholly owned subsidiary, Gem Reward Sdn. Bhd. (“GEM”). The ZCITY App was successfully launched in Malaysia in June 2020. GEM is equipped with the know-how and expertise to develop additional/add-on technology-based products and services to complement the ZCITY App, thereby growing its reach and user base.
Through simplifying a user’s e-payment gateway experience, as well as by providing great deals, rewards and promotions with every use, we aim to make the ZCITY App Malaysia’s top reward and payment gateway platform. Our longer-term goal is for the ZCITY App and its ever-developing technology to become one of the most well-known commercialized applications more broadly in Southeast Asia and Japan.
As of December 5, 2022, we had over 2,312,114 registered users and over 1,998 registered merchants.
Corporate Structure
T
reasure Global, Inc. is a Delaware corporation that was incorporated on March 20, 2020. We issued 10,000,000 shares to Kok Pin “Darren” Tan, our founder and former Chief Executive Officer on July 1, 2020, who as a result became our sole shareholder. As of
December 5
, 2022, we had a total of 92 full time employees.
Gem Reward Sdn. Bhd. (“GEM”), a Malaysia private limited company was incorporated on June 6, 2017. Prior to the incorporation of GEM, Kok Pin “Darren” Tan entered into a Beneficial Shareholding Agreement (“Beneficial Shareholding Agreement 1”) with two individuals, one of which is a vice president of the Company (the “Initial GEM Shareholders”), which provided for the Initial Shareholders to hold the GEM shares issued to them in equal amounts and for the sole benefit of Kok Pin “Darren” Tan and provided Kok Pin “Darren” Tan with control over the voting and disposition over such shares as well as control over the issuance of additional GEM shares in consideration for equity in a company that had not been determined on the date of Beneficial Shareholding Agreement 1. On November 10, 2020, Kok Pin “Darren” Tan instructed the Initial GEM Shareholders to issue 1 million additional GEM shares to shares to Chong Chan “Sam” Teo, currently our Chief Executive Officer, and as a result each Initial GEM Shareholder and Chong Chan “Sam” Teo held 1 million shares of GEM. On November 10, 2020 Chong Chan “Sam” Teo entered into a Beneficial Shareholding Agreement with Kok Pin “Darren” Tan with terms similar to Beneficial Shareholding Agreement 1 (“Beneficial Shareholding Agreement 2” and together with the Beneficial Shareholding Agreement 1, “Beneficial Shareholding Agreements”). As a result of Kok Pin “Darren” Tan’s 100% ownership of our common stock and the Beneficial Shareholding Agreements, TGI and GEM were both under the sole control of Kok Pin “Darren” Tan.
TGI and GEM were reorganized into a parent subsidiary structure pursuant to a Share Swap Agreement, dated March 11, 2021, as amended on March 11, 2021 among TGI, the Initial GEM Shareholders and Chong Chan “Sam” Teo (the “Share Swap Agreement”), in which TGI exchanged 321,585 shares of its common stock (the “Swap Shares”) for all equity of GEM. Pursuant to the Share Swap Agreement, the purchase and sale of the Swap Shares was completed on March 11, 2021, but the issuance of the Swap Shares did not occur until October 27, 2021 when TGI amended its certificate of incorporation to increase the number of its authorized common stock to a number that was sufficient to issue the Swap Shares. As a result of the Share Swap Agreement, (i) GEM became the 100% subsidiary of TGI and Kok Pin “Darren” Tan no longer had any control over GEM’s ordinary shares; and (ii) Kok Pin “Darren” Tan, the Initial GEM Shareholders and Chong Chan “Sam” Teo owned 100% of the TGI common stock (Kok Pin “Darren” Tan owning 97%). Subsequent to the date of the Share Swap Agreement, Kok Pin “Darren” Tan transferred 9,529,002 of his 10,000,000 shares of TGI common stock to 16 individuals and entities and currently owns less than 5% of our common stock.
We operate solely through GEM. GEM owns all intellectual property rights to copyrightable, patentable, and other protectable intangible assets relating to our business, including trademarks.
Corporate Information
Our principal executive offices are located at 276 5th Avenue, Suite 704 #739, New York, New York 10001 and. No.29, Jalan PPU 2A, Taman Perindustrian Pusat Bandar Puchong, 47100 Puchong, Selangor, Malaysia.
Our corporate website address is https://treasureglobal.co. Our ZCITY website address is https://zcity.io.
Market Opportunity
We expect that continued strong economic expansion, robust population growth, rising level of urbanization, the emergence of the middle class and the increasing rate of adoption of mobile technology provide market opportunities for our Company in Southeast Asia (“SEA”). SEA is a large economy and, as of 2020, its gross domestic product (“GDP”) was US$3.08 trillion
1
. In comparison, the respective GDP for both the European Union (“EU”) and the United States (“US”) totalled US$15 trillion and US$20.89 trillion16
2
in 2020. SEA has experienced rapid economic growth rates in recent years, far exceeding growth in major world economies such as Japan, the EU and the US. According to the IMF, Malaysia’s GDP growth averaged more than 4.3% from 2016 to 2019, but contracted by 6.0% in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and is expected to average 5.7% growth for the next five years (including 2021).
3
The GDP of Malaysia amounted to US$337 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach approximately US$500 billion by 2025.
4
SEA continues to enjoy robust population growth. The United Nations Population Division estimates that the population of the SEA countries in 2000 was approximately 525 million people growing to 668 million in 2020. According to the World Bank, Malaysia had a population of approximately 32 million people in 2020 compared to 23 million people in 2000.
5
A high percentage of Malaysians have lived in cities for the last decade and that percentage is increasing. Since 2010,
6
Malaysia’s urbanization has increased from approximately 71% to approximately 77% in 2020. By comparison, in 2020 the urbanization rates for China, Vietnam and India were approximately 64%, 37% and 35%, respectively.
7
1
https://www.statista.com/statistics/796245/gdp-of-the-asean-countries/
2
https://www.statista.com/statistics/263591/gross-domestic-product-gdp-of-the-united-states/
3
https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2021/03/17/pr2172-malaysia-imf-executive-board-concludes-2021-article-iv-consultation-with-malaysia
4
IMF Staff Report March 2021
5
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/south-eastern-asia-population/; https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/malaysia-population/; https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=MY
6
Statista.com
7
Statista.com
Urbanization is highly correlated with the size and growth of the middle class. Simply put, urbanization drives middle class consumption demand. According to the World Bank, Malaysia is likely to transition from an upper-middle-income economy to a high-income economy between 2024 and 2028, a reflection of the country’s economic transformation development trajectory over past decades. In fact, Malaysia’s gross national income per capita is at US$11,200 according to latest estimates, only US$1,335 short of the current threshold level that defines a high-income economy.
8
And despite the ongoing effects from the Covid-19 pandemic, the Internet economy continues to boom in SEA. According to Google Temasek e-Conomy SEA 2021 Report (the “Google Report”), internet usage in the region increased with 40 million new users added in 2021 for a total of 440 million compared to 360 million in 2019 and 400 million in 2020.24
9
Eighty nine percent of Malaysia’s population is now online, compared to approximately fifty six percent in 2010.25
10
81% and 80% of Malaysia and SEA’s internet users, respectively, have made at least one purchase online. E-commerce, online media and food delivery adoption and usage surged with the total value of goods and services sold via the Internet, or gross merchandise value (“GMV”), in SEA, expected to reach approximately US$170 billion by year end 2021 according to the Google Report. In fact, according to the Google Report, the SEA Internet sector GMV is forecast to grow to over US$360 billion by 2025 up from the $300 billion forecast in the Google, Temasek, Bain SEA Report 2020.
11
Malaysia’s internet economy has grown from $14 billion in 2020 to $21 billion in 2021 (47% growth) and is expected to grow to $35 billion in 2025.
12
As consumers in these markets that gradually shifting towards online platforms model, the total value of internet-based transactions has grown tremendously and is expected to keep doing so. According to the Google Report, total GMV of South Asia’s Internet economy is expected to skyrocket from US$174 billion in 2021 to US$363 billion in 2025.
We believe that these ongoing positive economic and demographic trends in SEA and South Asia propel demand for our e-commerce platform.
About the ZCITY App
SEA consumers have access to a plethora of smart ordering, delivery and “loyalty” websites and apps, but in our experience, SEA consumers very rarely receive personalized deals based on their purchases and behavior.
The ZCITY App targets consumers through the provision of personalized deals based on consumers’ purchase history, location and preferences. Our technology platform allows us to identify the spending trends of our customers (the when, where, why, and how much). We are able to offer these personalized deals through the application of our proprietary artificial intelligence (or “AI”) technology that scours the available database to identify and create opportunities to extrapolate the greatest value from the data, analyze consumer behavior and roll out attractive rewards-based campaigns for targeted audiences. We believe this AI technology is currently a unique market differentiator for the ZCITY App.
We operate our ZCITY App on the hashtag: “#RewardsOnRewards”. We believe this branding demonstrates to users the ability to spend ZCITY App-based Reward Points (or “RP”) and “ZCITY Cash Vouchers” with discount benefits at checkout. Additionally, users can use RP while they earn rewards from selected e-Wallet or other payment methods.
ZCITY App users do not require any on-going credit top-up or need to provide bank card number with their binding obligations. We have partnered with Malaysia’s leading payment gateway, IPAY88, for secure and convenient transactions. Users can use our secure platform and enjoy cashless shopping experiences with rebates when they shop with e-commerce and retail merchants through trusted and leading e-wallet providers such as Touch’n Go eWallet, Boost eWallet, GrabPay eWallet and credit card/online banking like the “FPX” (the Malaysian Financial Process Exchange) as well as more traditional providers such as Visa and Mastercard.
8
The World Bank Press Release dated March 16, 2021,
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2021/03/16/aiminghighmalaysia
9
https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/e_conomy_sea_2021_report.pdf
10
https://www.statista.com/statistics/975058/internet-penetration-rate-in-malaysia/
11
https://www.bain.com/globalassets/noindex/2020/e_conomy_sea_2020_report.pdf
12
https://www.digitalnewsasia.com/digital-economy/e-conomy-sea-report-2021-malaysias-internet-economy-crosses-us21-bil
Our ZCITY App also provides the following functions:
1. Registration and Account verification
Users may register as a ZCITY App user simply, using their mobile device. They can then verify their ZCITY App account by submitting a valid email address to receive new user “ZCITY Newbie Rewards”.
2. Geo-location-based Homepage
Based on users’ location, nearby merchants and exclusive offers are selected and directed to them on their homepage for a smooth, user-friendly interaction.
3. Affiliate Partnership
Our ZCITY App is affiliated with more than 5 local services providers such as Shopee and Lazada. The ZCITY App allows users to enjoy more rewards when they navigate from the ZCITY App to a partner’s website.
4. Bill Payment & Prepaid service
Users can access and pay utility bills, such as water, phone, internet and TV bills, while generating instant discounts and rewards points with each payment.
5. Branded e-Vouchers
Users can purchase their preferred e-Vouchers with instant discounts and rewards points with each checkout.
6. User Engagement through Gamification
Users can earn daily rewards by playing our ZCITY App minigame “Spin & Win” where they can earn further ZCITY RP, ZCITY e-Vouchers as well as monthly grand prizes.
7. Charity CSR program
Users can make cashless donations through our ZCITY App to the Kentang Charity, which we have collaborated with, or apply donations to other charitable entities.
8. Tazte Smart F&B system
ZCITY App offers a “Smart F&B” system that provides a one stop solution and digitalization transformation for all registered Food and Beverage (“F&B”) outlets located in Malaysia. It also allows merchants to easily record transactions with QR Digital Payment technology, set discounts and execute RP redemptions and rewards online on the ZCITY App.
By utilizing our CRM analytics software to attract and retain consumers through personalized promotions, we believe that data-driven engagement can be more efficiently harnessed to generate greater profitability.
9. Zstore e-Mall
Zstore is ZCITY App’s e-mall service that offers group-buys and instant rebate to users with embedded AI and big data analytics to provide an express shopping experience. The functionality and benefit of users to use the Zstore can be summarized within the chart below:
Buy Now, Pay Later (“BNPL”) is a value-added feature that is not yet operational, but which we intend to add to the ZCITY App and launch during the third quarter of 2023. Any credit provided to users through BNPL will be provided by a third-party credit provider. Management is currently in the process of determining who would be an appropriate and regulatory compliant provider of such services. In no instance will we provide credit to our users.
Set out below is an illustration of some of our key partnerships by category:
Retail Merchant Agreements
. We have retail merchant agreements with Morganfield’s Holdings Sdn. Bhd., Hui Lau Shan and the Alley which together own more than 100 offline food and beverage franchises in Malaysia. Each of these retail merchants have signed our standard retail merchant agreement which allow merchants to sell their products on the ZCITY App for which we receive a commission ranging from 1% to 10% depending on the category of goods or services being purchased on the ZCITY App. These agreements also provide that each party may use the intellectual property marks of the other party without charge. These agreements may be terminated by either party with 30 days’ notice.
Services Partners Agreements
. We have service provider agreements with Coup Marketing Asia Pacific Sdn. Bhd. D/B/A Pay’s Gift and MOL Access Portal Sdn. Bhd. D/B/A Razor Gold in which Pay’s Gift and Razor Gold provide us with e-vouchers for use on the ZCITY App that provide users with discounts on goods and services of many top multinational and lifestyle brands, including gas, clothing, fast food, movie theatres and others. We pay the service partner for the cost of the e-voucher plus a service fee. These contracts provide for the use by us of the trademarks of the service providers and may be terminated at any time with 30 days’ notice.
Local Strategic Partner Agreements
. We have local strategic partner agreements with iPay88 (M) Sdn. Bhd. (“iPay88”), TNG Digital Sdn. Bhd. (“TNG”) and Public Bank Berhad
(“Public Bank”). The agreements we enter into with these local strategic partners provide us with payment gateways (i.e. online “checkout” portals) used to enter credit card information for payment of goods and services.
The iPay88 agreement was entered into on August 6, 2021 and provides our users with payment gateways that include credit card processing, online banking services from certain banks in Malaysia and eWallet payment processing for certain brands for which iPay88 receives a fee ranging from 1.0% to 1.6% of the processed transaction depending on the credit card used or if the transaction is online banking or eWallet.
The TNG agreement was entered into on November 16, 2021 and provides our users with eWallet payment gateway services that was accepted from January 1, 2022 to March 31, 2022. TNG eWallet users on the ZCITY App will also receive RM2.00 cash back vouchers from TNG (which can only be used on the ZCITY App and certain other limitations apply) for each transaction of at least RM2.00. TNG provides cash back for up to 75,000 transactions and bill us monthly for the subsidy (up to RM150,000). The agreement provides for 75,000 eWallet transactions for which transactions for which iPay was entered into on August 6, 2021, but has no termination provision. We have entered into an extended agreement with TNG dated March 21, 2022 that is effective for the period beginning on April 1, 2022 and ended on June 30, 2022. We have entered another agreement with TNG dated August 17, 2022 that is effective for the period beginning on August 24 to 27, 2022. TNG eWallet users can earn 1 cash voucher worth RM5, RM10 and RM20 with a minimum spending of RM15, RM30 and RM50 respectively in bill payment. We provide the cash back for up to 3,000 transactions and total allocation amount of RM60,000. Another extended agreement with TNG was entered on October 10, 2022, that is effective from October 15, 2022 to December 14, 2022. In this campaign agreement, the ZCITY’s user could get RM2.00 cashback with minimum spend of RM30.00 in a single transaction.
The FamilyMart (registered under QL Maxincome Sdn Bhd) agreement was entered May 31, 2022 that is effective for 1 year period beginning on June 3, 2022. Company has deposited RM100,000 to FamilyMart to get the cash voucher or product voucher whenever is required. Family Mart will provide discount of 1% for cash voucher and 3% for product voucher.
The Public Bank agreement was entered into on February 8, 2022 and commenced on March 1, 2022 and terminates on May 31, 2022. ZCITY App users can win RM50 worth of ZCITY cash back vouchers if the spend a minimum of RM50 using the Public Bank credit/debit card on the ZCITY App. The 100 users with the highest spending during the effective time of the agreement are selected. These vouchers are funded by us. We have continuously entered into three-month agreements with Public Bank since August 1, 2021 We have extended the collaboration and have signed the renewal agreement dated June 21, 2022 for the period beginning July 1 to September 30, 2022 and subsequently on September 12, 2022 for the period beginning on October 15, 2022 to January 15, 2023.
Local Demands Agreements
. We have local demand agreements with Digi Telecommunication Sdn. Bhd. (“Digi”) and ATX Distribution Sdn. Bhd. (“ATX”) which provide ZCITY App users bill payment services.
The Digi agreement was entered on December 16, 2021 and provides our users with bill payment services for all of its telecommunication products and services to postpaid subscribers. We receive a commission from Digi of 0.5% for each transaction. ZCITY App users may also use us Digi’s prepaid automatic internet payment service for which we receive a commission from Digi of 2.5% for each reload. The Digi agreement may be terminated by either party with 30 days’ notice.
The ATX agreement was entered into on November 8, 2021 whereby ATX and provides our users with bill payment services for many companies in Malaysia, including but not limited to, certain utilities, telecommunication companies, insurance companies, entertainment companies and charities. We receive a commission on each transaction from AXT at different rates depending on the company for which the bill is being paid. The ATX agreement may be terminated by either party with 30 days’ notice.
The Company has both direct and indirect relationships with merchants and service providers. In terms of the Company’s indirect relationships, through the Pay’s Gift agreement the Company is able to offer mobile e-vouchers for leading brands including SHELL, PUBG, Giant, Lotus, Lazada, Zalora and Watsons; while via the ipay88 agreement, the Company gains access to other e-wallet providers, such as Boost and GrabPay. Additionally, through the company’s agreement with ATX Distribution, it is able to gain access to bill payment services provided by Astro and Air Selangor.
Download ZCITY App
ZCITY App is free to download from the Google Play Store, Apple iOS Store, and Huawei AppGallery.
ZCITY Apps’s Reward Points Program
Operating under the hashtag #RewardsOnRewards, we believe the ZCITY App reward points program encourages users to sign up the app, as well as increasing user engagement and spending on purchases/repeat purchases and engenders user loyalty.
Furthermore, we believe the simplicity of the steps to obtaining Reward Points (or “RP”) is an attractive incentive to user participation in that participants receive:
· 200 RP for registration as a new user;
· 100 RP for referral of a new user;
· Conversion of Malaysian ringgit spent into RP;
· 50% RP of every referred user paid amount as a result of the referral; and
The key objectives of our RP are:
· Social Engagement:
RP are offered to users for increased social engagement.
· Spending:
RP incentivizes users with every MYR spent in order to increase the spending potential and to build users loyalty.
· Sign-up:
Drives loyalty and greater customer engagement. Every new user onboarded will get 200 RP as welcoming gift.
· Referral Program:
Rewards users with RP when they refer a new user.
Offline Merchant
When using our ZCITY App to make payment to a registered physical merchant, the system will automatically calculate the amount of RP to deduct. The deducted RP amount is based on the percentage of profit sharing as with the merchant and the available RP of the user.
Online Merchant
When using our ZCITY App to pay utility bills or purchase any e-vouchers, our system shows the maximum RP deduction allowed and the user determines the amount of discount deducted subject to maximum deductions described below and the number of RP owned by such user.
Different features have different maximum deduction amounts. For example, for bill payments, the maximum deduction is up to 3% of the bill amount. For e-vouchers, the maximum deduction is up to 5% of the voucher amount.
In order to increase the spending power of the user, our ZCITY App RP program will credit RP to the user for all MYR paid.
Merchant Facing Business
At present, our ZCITY merchants are concentrated in the F&B and lifestyle sectors. Moving forward, we plan to expand our product/service offering to include grocery stores, convenience stores, “micro-SME” (“small to medium size enterprises”) loan programs, affiliate programs and advertising agencies.
We believe that ZCITY’s Tazte Smart F&B System, which we plan to launch in the fourth quarter of 2022, will provide merchants with a one-stop automated solution to digitalize their business. It will offer an innovative and integrated technology ecosystem that addresses and personalizes each merchant’s technological needs and will be at the forefront of creating a smart consumer experience, thereby eliminating conventional and outdated standalone point of sale (or “POS”) systems.
Tazte will allow merchants to effortlessly record transactions with online payment or QR digital payment technology, set discounts and execute RP redemptions and rewards online, all via our ZCITY App. It utilizes ZCITY App’s CRM analytics software to attract and retain consumers through personalized, data-driven engagement to generate greater profitability.
Tazte Smart F&B System will also feature a ‘Deviceless Queue System’ that reduces staff headcount and a private domain delivery service that will allow merchants access to multiple dedicated delivery partners to ensure outstanding delivery service to consumers.
Marketing Strategy - Consumer
With the number of available apps for download from the world’s leading app stores totaling over four million, we believe that structured and innovative user marketing strategy is the only way to stand out in today’s app market. Aside from focusing on app development and building our app features properly, we believe we need to get our app featured on the leading platforms to most successfully extend our reach and user base.
We believe that our ZCITY App marketing strategy covers the user from when they first learn about our ZCITY App, to when they become a regular repeat user. The marketing strategy for the ZCITY App involves defining our target audience, learning how best to reach them, how best to communicate with them, and analyzing their “in-app” behavior to make continuous AI driven improvements as users move through the recruitment funnel.
Ultimately, the goal of our ZCITY App marketing strategy is to acquire users that will not only drive repeat engagement, but will also become loyal advocates for the ZCITY App.
At the initial launch of the ZCITY App in June 2020, we combined both online and offline strategies in branding and marketing, which we believed would effectively communicate our objectives, reaching a prospective target audience and turning that target audience into users of our ZCITY App.
Other than just user experience and features offered in the app itself, we believe consumers are choosing brands whose messaging, marketing and values go beyond the product, and have a potentially deeper meaning to the user. For example, they may consider brand trustworthiness and identity to be major influences on their market decisions. As a result, we have focused on building brand loyalty to drive on going marketing success, increase repeat users and attain greater market share.
In this regard, we have chosen to adapt various marketing strategies, such as re-targeting users and enticing current users to use our app on multiple occasions, by providing what users look for when they choose our app in order to increase engagement and retention. The diagram below reflects the strategies we engage in to promote marketing success and avoid missed opportunities.
We adopt a multi-pronged approach to user outreach through outdoor digital billboards, radio commercials, third party editorials and advertorials, social media postings on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, as well as the targeting of users through Google ads and direct email marketing to encourage downloads and promote various campaigns.
Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been very focused on reaching our target audience through digital media due to movement restrictions and retail closures. Advertisements especially on social media have become more routine.
Social media-based advertising can be very targeted, helping to convert new users into repeat users and building brand loyalty. We reach potential users based on criteria, including, among others, job title, interests, marital status, and recent locations. We believe that it is much easier to measure and optimize social media campaigns while they are active. If an advertisement isn’t producing expected results, we can suspend the campaign or reallocate funds on demand.
Another key media vehicle that we utilize is Universal App Campaign (or “UAC”) by Google. UAC helps promote our ZCITY App across Google’s largest properties including Google Search, Google Play Store, YouTube, and the Google Display Network. It combines information Google has on users’ tendencies and perceived intents outside of the app (such as what they have searched for, what other apps they have downloaded and what they watched on YouTube) with advertisers’ information on user actions in the app.
UAC then uses machine learning technology to make decisions for each ad by analyzing potential data signal combinations in real-time, including the platform where users are most likely to engage with our ad (such as YouTube or Gmail), the right ad format (whether video, text, or combination of the two) and keywords that will perform best for our marketing goals.
In addition, in order to obtain more accurate data for analysis, AppsFlyer SDK is installed in our ZCITY App, where it provides conversion data of user acquisition and retention campaigns. Through AppsFlyer SDK, we can monitor digital media activities to optimize our marketing budget. The data can be utilized and turned into actionable insights (to run campaigns and promotions which users are more favorable to) that will share our strategic and tactical business decisions, while boosting the ZCITY App brand presence.
Marketing Strategy - Merchants “6Cs” Strategy
In order to roll out our system, we plan to implement our 6Cs marketing strategy: clients, convenience, competition, consistency with creative content, corporate social responsibilities and credibility.
Clients (Soon-to-be F&B Owners)
. We have forecast potential merchants by category, which will enable us to create a marketing plan that will attract them by aligning our promotional content with their business interests and ideals. We will initiate advertisements that connect with their preferences and generate brand loyalty. We have developed “The PILOT” program where we plan offer prospective merchant F&B owners a free Tazte Smart F&B system to facilitate their O2O business.
Convenience
. We plan to demonstrate the convenience provided by our ZCITY App by launching a digitalization initiative which can get a merchant up and running on our platform within 24 hours. We believe this strategy emphasizes the ease of onboarding potential merchants and the potential positive transformation of their business in the shortest amount of time.
Competition
. To further differentiate our system from our competitors, we expect to identify, compare and discover issues within their business model of operations against our own business model. The “SWITCH 180” program is where we plan to offer F&B owners not only a free Tazte Smart F&B system, but we will also offer additional support such as artificial intelligence inventory management system and discount vouchers.
Consistency with Creative Content
. We plan to maintain a consistent brand image across all our current marketing approaches with creative and innovative content. We strive to make our brand recognizable to stand out among competitors to increase brand awareness and recognition.
Corporate Social Responsibilities
. We expect to integrate social and environmental concerns in our business operations to gain positive publicity and recognition and greater market exposure. For example, our “Love Delivery” program under Tazte will allow consumers to donate food through our merchant family to charitable establishments such as orphanages and senior centers and similar charitable organizations. Our “Green Oil” program will allow our merchants to contribute to zero pollution by recycling used cooking oil with one of our strategic partners.
Credibility
. We expect to prove our credibility by presenting our expertise to potential merchants who are seeking alternative business strategies in the ever-expanding technological age. We believe that promoting a credible and reliable system for merchants will increase referrals and positive reviews. Our “Tazte Cares <3” program offers F&B owners free business operations “health checks” and offers troubleshooting solutions by introducing Tazte Smart F&B System into their business.
Revenue Model
ZCITY’s revenues are generated from a diversified mix of:
· e-commerce activities for users
· services to merchants to help them grow their businesses
· membership subscription fees.
The revenue streams consist of “Consumer Facing” revenues and “Merchant Facing” revenues.
The revenue streams can be further categorized as following: (1) product and loyalty program revenue, (2) transaction revenue, and (3) agent subscription revenue.
Our Competitive Strengths
Powerful, Unique and Integrated App
. We have designed an application – the ZCITY App – which serves both consumers and merchants in ways that concurrently maximize value creation and enhance the shopping experience. Furthermore, through the application of our proprietary developed AI technology, we can offer consumers a more personalized and targeted rewards offering/experience.
Unique Loyalty Program
. Operating under our hashtag #RewardsOnRewards, we believe our RP program increases user engagement and loyalty. Through consumer redemption and platform issuance of RP, we believe our system is advantageous to both consumers and merchants.
Attractive Markets
. We currently operate in Malaysia, which according to the IMF is expected to average 5.1% GDP growth over the next five years. See “Business—Market Opportunity.”
As we scale our operations, we intend to expand to other countries in Southeast Asia, which possesses solid economic fundamentals, fast growing middle classes, favorable demographic trends and accelerating adoption of mobile technology.
Experienced Management Team
. Our executives and directors combine decades of on-the-ground local e-commerce operations and social media marketing experience, as well as professional expertise in the global finance field.
Our Growth Strategy
Our main goal is focused on the recruitment of new consumers and the registration of as many Tazte merchants as possible in the most efficient way in the shortest amount of time. We believe that this approach establishes a cycle where more consumers lead to more merchants and more merchants lead to more consumers. External partnerships play an important part in our business, as we will continue sourcing more delivery partners to offer our merchants greater flexibility.
Consumer Growth
. We strive to provide consumers with a smarter shopping experience from ordering to receiving goods and services as one seamless process. Our marketing efforts will focus on attracting consumers by awarding RP upon the execution of successful transactions (where they can redeem instant rebates).
Merchant Growth
. We believe that our Tazte program is an example of an O2O platform focusing on transforming traditional ways of operating F&B business with digitalized smart ecosystems which better streamline merchant business operations and directly contribute to higher revenues. We feel Tazte has the potential for our ZCITY App to pioneer a generation of technologically astute “Smart Merchants”, effectively encouraging more merchants to join the technological trend. Apart from the technological advantages, merchants would be able to gain access to a significant consumer database of nearly 2 million registered users currently for their own brand marketing.
Partner Growth
. We are continuously enhancing the ZCITY App through adding further strategic partnerships. We believe that collaborations will enable merchants and consumers to have more options to choose from and the delivery speed and rates related to transparency will benefit all parties.
Expansion Growth
. With our proven systems and by leveraging our large network, leading technology, operational excellence, and product expertise, we expect the ZCITY App to launch and scale our expansion plans to neighbouring countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, and Japan, by partnering with or acquiring local establishments.
Acquisition Growth
. In order to complement our organic growth strategy, we will continue to evaluate investment and acquisition opportunities that will enable us to become market leaders. Our anticipated investments and acquisitions of other e-commerce platforms in different verticals are expected to expand our service offerings and attract new consumers and merchants. We expect negotiations with acquisition targets in the e-Commerce industries. Furthermore, we would expect to finance such acquisitions through internal and potential financings from the stock market.
Strategic Partnerships
We have entered into agreements with various Malaysian companies i.e.: TouchnGo e-wallet marketing, iPay88, Boost eWallet, Digi and GrabPay eWallet to provide essential services to our ZCITY App platform.
Strategic partnerships are vital to our strategy and operations, as they enable the ZCITY App to offer more value-added services to both our consumers and merchants. Through our partnerships, we intend to gain low-cost access to our partners’ users, where possible, to drive user conversion. Our marketing approach to acquire strategic partners focuses on the benefits of brand awareness, stressing the ability to access a larger pool of consumers and clients while reducing marketing expenses via joint marketing efforts like crossover marketing campaigns, digital marketing and affiliate programs.
Competition Outlook
We compete with other online platforms and apps for merchants, who can sell their products/services on other online shopping marketplaces and other food ordering platforms. We also compete with other e-commerce platforms and apps, fashion and lifestyle retailers and restaurants for the attention of consumers. Consumers have the choice of shopping with any online or offline retailer, large marketplaces or restaurant chain. We compete for consumers and merchants based on our ability to deliver a personalized e-commerce experience with an easy-to-use mobile app, unique cross-business reward system, instant rebate & cashback, and a trusted payment gateway which is both secure and convenient.
Within the Malaysian market, we believe the principal competitors to the ZCITY App to include, but not limited to Fave, Shopback and SoPa. We have set out below how we perceive the ZCITY App differentiates its offering from these competitors in the Malaysian market both downstream (services provided to consumers) and upstream (services provided to merchants).
The information with respect to Fave was obtained from Fave’s website at https://help.myfave.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000181194-How-do-I-pay-with-FavePay-.
The information with respect to Shop Back was obtained from Shop Back’s website at https://support.shopback.my/hc/en-us/articles/360037382453-Is-there-a-payment-method-not-eligible-for-Cashback-
We expect to be able to successfully compete for merchants based on our unique cross-business reward system, reward points module, instant rebate and cashback program, upcoming new features, which we expect will build lasting customer loyalty for our merchants, as well as our personalized, data-driven approach to customer engagement, both of which ensure that our success is aligned with that of our merchants.
Intellectual Property Matters
Our technology and ZCITY App are comprised of copyrightable and/or patentable subject matter licensed by our Malaysian subsidiary, GEM. Our intellectual property assets include trade secrets associated with our software platform. We have successfully carried out development of our multilayer cloud-based software platform based upon our reliance on third parties for payment and reward points deployment. As a result, we can monetize our software by making it available in locations such as the Apple iOS Store, Google Play Store, Huawei AppGallery and compatible with existing payment systems depending on the country’s regulatory requirements. We are currently focusing on using our intellectual property in Malaysia and plan to expand further into Southeast Asia as part of our strategy. The loss of all of these third-party payment facilitators could not be easily replaced and therefore could materially affect our business and results of operations.
Trademarks. GEM has filed one trademark application stylized as “
” with the trademark offices of Malaysia. The name and mark, ZCITY App and other trade names and service marks of ZCITY in this prospectus are our property.
Patents. GEM has filed one patent application entitled “A Revenue Allocation System” with the Patents Registration Office of Malaysia.
We manage all our intellectual property matters in Malaysia including the registration of patents, trademarks, trade names, and service marks in the name of GEM, our subsidiary in Malaysia. While we have not delineated each of our trademarks, the foregoing constitute our material trademarks. Without prejudice to the generality of foregoing, GEM is, inter alia, the direct owner of the registered trademark “ZCITY” in connection with artificial intelligence software, electronic payment services, loyalty programs, SaaS platforms, and other subsets of our business.
Information Technology Protection. All of our software development professionals are required to sign and are bound by the IT Infrastructure, Security, Email, Intranet Usage Policy Manual (the “IT Policy Manual”), which governs use of our hardware, software, code, source code, data, computational data, screen data, analytics dashboards, data displayed on screens, emails, intranet and internet. This IT Policy Manual establishes standard practices and rules for responsible, safe, and productive use of our intellectual property, information and assets and is expected to ensure the protection of information and prevention of any misuse.
We have internally implemented the “Active Directory and VPN” to manage access to our assets in order to prevent any intentional or unintentional leaks of sensitive data, documentation or information, as well as to prevent users from installing irrelevant software or malware viruses.
Our ZCITY App’s server is hosted on the “Aliyun” cloud and is compliant with SOC2, which we believe securely manages our data across five aspects:
· Security – protects the system resources against unauthorized access.
· Availability – makes sure the server accessibility meets the SLA
· Confidentiality – data is encrypted during network transmission
We have in place a “Disaster Recovery” (“DR”) initiative, which we rely on the “Aliyun” cloud facilities to ensure as described below:
The architecture diagram shows how “Aliyun” cloud architect is powered by distributed servers and database services across multiple zones to ensure disaster recovery on deployment across multiple data centers, once the Server Load Balancer (SLB) detects the primary unavailable then it will direct all traffic to other in-service data centers.
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The controls for restricting user access to our system and data, include:
1) User authorization
2) Maintaining the user access log
3) Periodic review user access
4) Revoking user access
5) Managing Privileged User accesses
6) Separation of Duties to reduce the risk of misuse of client code and assets
Litigation
From time to time, we may become involved in legal proceedings arising in the ordinary course of our business. We believe that we do not have any pending or threatened litigation which, individually or in the aggregate, would have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition, and/or cash flows.
Properties
We lease and maintain our offices at located at 276 5th Avenue, Suite 704 #739, New York, New York 10001 and No.29, Jalan PPU 2A, Taman Perindustrian Pusat Bandar Puchong, 47100 Puchong, Selangor, Malaysia.
I
tem
1a. R
isk Factors.
Investing in our common stock is highly speculative and involves a significant degree of risk. Before you invest in our securities, you should give careful consideration to the following risk factors, in addition to the other information included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including our financial statements and related notes, before deciding whether to invest in our securities. The occurrence of any of the adverse developments described in the following risk factors could materially and adversely harm our business, financial condition, results of operations or prospects. In that case, the trading price of our common stock could decline, and you may lose all or part of your investment.
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Disaster Recovery – First-in-class automated disaster recovery mechanism with multi-AZ support
https://www.alibabacloud.com/solutions/hosting/Disaster-Recovery
Risks Related to Our Business
We have a limited operating history in an evolving industry, which makes it difficult to evaluate our future prospects and may increase the risk that we will not be successful.
The Company has a limited operating history on which to base an evaluation of its business and prospects. The Company is subject to all the risks inherent in a small company seeking to develop, market and distribute new services, particularly companies in evolving markets such as the internet, technology, and payment systems. The likelihood of the Company’s success must be considered, in light of the problems, expenses, difficulties, complications and delays frequently encountered in connection with the development, introduction, marketing and distribution of new products and services in a competitive environment.
Such risks for the Company include, but are not limited to, dependence on the success and acceptance of the Company’s services, the ability to attract and retain a suitable client base, and the management of growth. To address these risks, the Company must, among other things, generate increased demand, attract a sufficient clientele base, respond to competitive developments, increase the “GEM” and “ZCITY” brand names’ visibility, successfully introduce new services, attract, retain and motivate qualified personnel and upgrade and enhance the Company’s technologies to accommodate expanded service offerings. In view of the rapidly evolving nature of the Company’s business and its limited operating history, the Company believes that period-to-period comparisons of its operating results are not necessarily meaningful and should not be relied upon as an indication of future performance.
The Company is therefore subject to many of the risks common to early-stage enterprises, including under-capitalization, cash shortages, limitations with respect to personnel, financial, and other resources and lack of revenues.
If we fail to raise capital when needed it will have a material adverse effect on the Company’s business, financial condition and results of operations.
The Company has limited revenue-producing operations and will require the proceeds from its recently concluded offering to execute its full business plan. The Company believes the proceeds from its previous offering will be sufficient to cover its funding needs until November 2023. Further, no assurance can be given if additional capital is needed as to how much additional capital will be required or that additional financing can be obtained, or if obtainable, that the terms will be satisfactory to the Company, or that such financing would not result in a substantial dilution of shareholder’s interest. A failure to raise capital when needed would have a material adverse effect on the Company’s business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, debt and other equity financing may involve a pledge of assets and may be senior to interests of equity holders. Any debt financing secured in the future could involve restrictive covenants relating to capital raising activities and other financial and operational matters, which may make it more difficult for the Company to obtain additional capital or to pursue business opportunities, including potential acquisitions. If adequate funds are not obtained, the Company may be required to reduce, curtail, or discontinue operations.
None of our material contracts are long term and if not renewed could have a material adverse effect on our business.
We have entered into material contracts with a number of companies that directly or indirectly provide the goods and services that appear on our ZCITY App. The majority of these contracts can be terminated by any party with 30 days’ notice. The contract with iPay88, which provides the payment gateway for many of the brands that can be accessed through the ZCITY App has no termination clause
which means that
iPay88 could terminate this contract without any notice. If one or more of these contracts were not renewed or were terminated and we were not able to enter into agreements with others that could replace these services, the ZCITY App could lose material features and in turn we could find it harder to maintain and grow our user base, which would have a material adverse effect on our business. For a description of these material contracts See “Business—About ZCITY App.”
We rely on email, internet search engines and application marketplaces to drive traffic to our ZCITY platform, certain providers of which offer products and services that compete directly with our products. If links to our applications and website are not displayed prominently, traffic to our ZCITY platform could decline and our business would be adversely affected.
Email continues to be a verification source of organic traffic for us. If email providers or internet service providers implement new or more restrictive email or content delivery or accessibility policies, including with respect to net neutrality, it may become more difficult to deliver emails to our users or for user verification process. For example, certain email providers, including Google, categorize our emails as “promotional,” and these emails are directed to an alternate, and less readily accessible, section of a users’ inbox. If email providers materially limit or halt the delivery of our emails, or if we fail to deliver emails to users in a manner compatible with email providers’ email handling or authentication technologies, our ability to contact users through email could be significantly restricted. In addition, if we are placed on “spam” lists or lists of entities that have been involved in sending unwanted, unsolicited emails, marketing campaigns and business updates could be substantially harmed.
We rely heavily on Internet search engines, such as Google, to drive traffic to our ZCITY platform through their unpaid search results and on application marketplaces to drive downloads of our applications. Although search results and application marketplaces have allowed us to attract a large audience with low organic traffic acquisition costs to date, if they fail to drive sufficient traffic to our ZCITY platform, we may need to increase our marketing spend to acquire additional traffic. We cannot assure you that the value we ultimately derive from any such additional traffic would exceed the cost of acquisition, and any increase in marketing expense may in turn harm our operating results.
The amount of traffic we attract from search engines is due in large part to how and where information from and links to our website are displayed on search engine result pages. The display, including rankings, of unpaid search results can be affected by a number of factors, many of which are not in our direct control, and may change frequently. Search engines have made changes in the past to their ranking algorithms, methodologies and design layouts that may have reduced the prominence of links to our ZCITY platform and negatively impacted our traffic, and we expect they will continue to make such changes from time to time in the future. Similarly, marketplace operators may make changes to their marketplaces that make access to our products more difficult. For example, our applications may receive unfavorable treatment compared to the promotion and placement of competing applications, such as the order in which they appear within marketplaces.
We may not know how or otherwise be in a position to influence search results or our treatment in application marketplaces. With respect to search results in particular, even when search engines announce the details of their methodologies, their parameters may change from time to time, be poorly defined or be inconsistently interpreted. For example, Google previously announced that the rankings of sites showing certain types of app install interstitials could be penalized on its mobile search results pages. While we believe the type of interstitial we currently use is not being penalized, we cannot guarantee that Google will not unexpectedly penalize our app install interstitials, causing links to our mobile website to be featured less prominently in Google’s mobile search results and harming traffic to our ZCITY platform as a result.
In some instances, search engine companies and application marketplaces may change their displays or rankings in order to promote their own competing products or services or the products or services of one or more of our competitors. For example, Google has integrated its local product offering with certain of its products, including search and maps. The resulting promotion of Google’s own competing products in its web search results has negatively impacted the search ranking of our website. Because Google in particular is the most significant source of traffic to our website, accounting for a substantial portion of the visits to our website, our success depends on our ability to maintain a prominent presence in search results for queries regarding local businesses on Google. As a result, Google’s promotion of its own competing products, or similar actions by Google in the future that have the effect of reducing our prominence or ranking on its search results, could have a substantial negative effect on our business and results of operations.
The ecommerce market is highly competitive and if the Company does not have sufficient resources to maintain research and development, marketing, sales and client support efforts on a competitive basis our business could be adversely affected.
The internet-based ecommerce business is highly competitive and the Company competes with several different types of companies that offer some form of user-vendor connection experience, as well as marketing data companies. Certain of these competitors may have greater industry experience or financial and other resources than the Company.
To become and remain competitive, the Company will require research and development, marketing, sales, and client support. The Company may not have sufficient resources to maintain research and development, marketing, sales and client support efforts on a competitive basis which could materially and adversely affect the business, financial condition and results of operations of the Company. The Company intends to differentiate itself from competitors by developing a payments platform that allows consumers and merchants to accept and use bonus points.
The market for consumer’s lifestyle is rapidly evolving and intensely competitive, and the Company expects competition to intensify further in the future. There is no guarantee that any factors that differentiate the Company from its competitors will give the Company a market advantage or continue to be a differentiating factor for the Company in the foreseeable future. Competitive pressures created by our direct or indirect competitors could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s business, results of operations and financial condition.
The market for our ZCITY platform is new and unproven.
We were founded in 2020 and GEM was founded in 2017 and since our inception have been creating products for the developing and rapidly evolving market for API-based software platforms, a market that is largely unproven and is subject to a number of inherent risks and uncertainties. We believe that our future success will depend in large part on the growth, if any, in the market for software platforms that provide features and functionality to create the entire lifestyle ecosystem. It is difficult to predict customer adoption and renewal rates, customer demand for our solutions, the size and growth rate of the overall market that our ZCITY platform addresses, the entry of competitive products or the success of existing competitive products. Any expansion of the market our ZCITY platform addresses depends upon a number of factors, including the cost, performance, and perceived value associated with such solutions. If the market our ZCITY platform addresses does not achieve significant additional growth or there is a reduction in demand for such solutions caused by a lack of customer acceptance, technological challenges, competing technologies and products or decreases in corporate spending, it could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s business, results of operations and financial condition.
If we are unable to expand our systems or develop or acquire technologies to accommodate increased volume or an increased variety of operating systems, networks and devices broadly used in the marketplace our ZCITY platform could be impaired.
We seek to generate a high volume of traffic and transactions through our technologies. Accordingly, the satisfactory performance, reliability and availability of the Company’s website and platform, processing systems and network infrastructure are critical to our reputation and its ability to attract and retain large numbers of users who transact sales on its platform through a variety of operating systems, networks and devices while maintaining adequate customer service levels. The Company’s revenues depend, in substantial way, on the volume of user transactions that are successfully completed. Any system interruptions that result in the unavailability of our service or reduced customer activity would ultimately reduce the volume of transactions completed. Interruptions of service may also diminish the attractiveness of our company and its services. Any substantial increase in the volume of traffic on our ZCITY platform, the number of transactions being conducted by customers or substantial increase in the variety of operating systems, networks or devices that are broadly used in the marketplace will require us to expand and upgrade our technology, transaction processing systems and network infrastructure. There can be no assurance that we will be able to accurately project the rate or timing of increases, if any, in the use of the ZCITY platform or timely expand and upgrade our systems and infrastructure to accommodate such increases or increases in the variety of operating systems, networks or devices in a timely manner. Any failure to expand or upgrade its systems could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s business, results of operations and financial condition.
The Company uses internally developed systems to operate its service and for transaction processing. The Company must continually enhance and improve these systems in order to accommodate the level of use of its products and services and increase its security. Furthermore, in the future, the Company may add new features and functionality to its services that would result in the need to develop or license additional technologies. The Company’s inability to add new software and hardware to develop and further upgrade its existing technology, transaction processing systems or network infrastructure to accommodate increased traffic on its platforms or increased transaction volume through its processing systems or to accommodate new operating systems, networks or devices broadly used in the marketplace or to provide new features or functionality may cause unanticipated system disruptions, slower response times, degradation in levels of customer service, impaired quality of the user’s experience on the Company’s service, and delays in reporting accurate financial information. There can be no assurance that the Company will be able in a timely manner to effectively upgrade and expand its systems or to integrate smoothly any newly developed or purchased technologies with its existing systems. Any inability to do so would have a material adverse effect on the Company’s business, results of operations and financial condition.
As we increase our reliance on cloud-based applications and platforms to operate and deliver our products and services, any disruption or interference with these platforms could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.
We rely on cloud-based applications and platforms for critical business functions. We also are migrating a significant portion of our computing infrastructure to third party hosted cloud-based computing platforms. If we are not able to complete this migration on our expected timeline, we could incur additional costs. Further, these migrations can be risky and may cause disruptions to the availability of our products due to service outages, downtime or other unforeseen issues that could increase our costs. We also may be subject to additional risk of cybersecurity breaches or other improper access to our data or confidential information during or following migrations to cloud-based computing platforms. In addition, cloud computing services may operate differently than anticipated when introduced or when new versions or enhancements are released. As we increase our reliance on cloud-based computing services, our exposure to damage from service interruptions may increase. In the event any such issues arise; it may be difficult for us to switch our operations from our primary cloud-based providers to alternative providers. Further, any such transition could involve significant time and expense and could negatively impact our ability to deliver our products and services, which could harm our financial condition and results of operations.
The Company’s failure to successfully market its ZCITY platform could result in adverse financial consequences.
The Company believes that continuing to strengthen its ZCITY platform is critical to achieving widespread acceptance of the Company, particularly in light of the competitive nature of the Company’s market. Promoting and positioning its ZCITY platform will depend largely on the success of the Company’s marketing efforts and the ability of the Company to provide high quality services. In order to promote its ZCITY platform, the Company will need to increase its marketing budget and otherwise increase its financial commitment to creating and maintaining brand loyalty among users. There can be no assurance that ZCITY platform promotion activities will yield increased revenues or that any such revenues would offset the expenses incurred by the Company in building its ZCITY platform. Further, there can be no assurance that any new users attracted to the Company will conduct transactions over the ZCITY platform on a regular basis. If the Company fails to promote and maintain its brand or incurs substantial expenses in an attempt to promote and maintain its brand or if the Company’s existing or future strategic relationships fail to promote the ZCITY platform or increase awareness, the Company’s business, results of operations and financial condition would be materially adversely affected.
The Company may not be able to successfully develop and promote new products or services which could result in adverse financial consequences.
The Company plans to expand its operations by developing and promoting new or complementary services, products or transaction formats or expanding the breadth and depth of services. There can be no assurance that the Company will be able to expand its operations in a cost-effective or timely manner or that any such efforts will maintain or increase overall market acceptance. Furthermore, any new business or service launched by the Company that is not favorably received by consumers could damage the Company’s reputation and diminish the value of its brand. Expansion of the Company’s operations in this manner would also require significant additional expenses and development, operations and other resources and would strain the Company’s management, financial and operational resources. The lack of market acceptance of such services or the Company’s inability to generate satisfactory revenues from such expanded services to offset their cost could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s business, results of operations and financial condition.
In addition, if we are unable to keep up with changes in technology and new hardware, software and services offerings, for example, by providing the appropriate training to out account managers, sales technology specialists, engineers and consultants to enable them to effectively sell and deliver such new offerings to customers, our business, results of operations, or financial condition could be adversely affected.
A decline in the demand for goods and services of the merchants included in the ZCITY platform could result in adverse financial consequences.
The Company expects to derive most of its revenues from fees from successfully completed transactions on its consumer facing platforms. The Company’s future revenues will depend upon continued demand for the types of goods and services that are offered by the merchants that are included on such platforms. Any decline in demand for the goods offered through the Company’s services as a result of changes in consumer trends could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s business, results of operations and financial condition.
The effective operation of the Company’s platform is dependent on technical infrastructure and certain third-party service providers.
Our ability to attract, retain, and serve customers is dependent upon the reliable performance of our ZCITY platform and the underlying technical infrastructure. We may fail to effectively scale and grow our technical infrastructure to accommodate these increased demands. In addition, our business will be reliant upon third party partners such as financial service providers and cash-out providers, payment terminals and equipment providers. Any disruption or failure in the services from third party partners used to facilitate our business could harm our business. Any financial or other difficulties these partners face may adversely affect our business, and we exercise little control over these partners, which increases vulnerability to problems with the services they provide.
There is no assurance that the Company will be profitable.
There is no assurance that we will earn profits in the future, or that profitability will be sustained. There is no assurance that future revenues will be sufficient to generate the funds required to continue our business development and marketing activities. If we do not have sufficient capital to fund our operations, we may be required to reduce our sales and marketing efforts or forego certain business opportunities.
We could lose the right to the use of our domain names.
We have registered domain names for our website that we use in our business. If we lose the ability to use a domain name, whether due to trademark claims, failure to renew the applicable registration, or any other cause, we may be forced to market our products under a new domain name, which could cause us substantial harm, or to incur significant expense in order to purchase rights to the domain name in question. In addition, our competitors and others could attempt to capitalize on our brand recognition by using domain names similar to ours, especially in light of our expected expansion in SEA countries and East Asia. Domain names similar to ours may be registered in the United States and elsewhere. We may be unable to prevent third parties from acquiring and using domain names that infringe on, are similar to, or otherwise decrease the value of our brand or our trademarks or service marks. Protecting and enforcing our rights in our domain names may require litigation, which could result in substantial costs and diversion of management’s attention.
We may be required to expend resources to protect ZCITY platform information or we may be unable to launch our services.
From time to time, other companies may copy information from our ZCITY platform, through website scraping, robots or other means, and publish or aggregate it with other information for their own benefit. We have no assurance other companies will not copy, publish or aggregate content from our ZCITY platform in the future. When third parties copy, publish, or aggregate content from our ZCITY platform, it makes them more competitive, and decreases the likelihood that consumers will visit our website or use our mobile app to find the information they seek, which could negatively affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. We may not be able to detect such third-party conduct in a timely manner and, even if we could, we may not be able to prevent it. In some cases, particularly in the case of websites operating outside of the United States, our available remedies may be inadequate to protect us against such practices. In addition, we may be required to expend significant financial or other resources to successfully enforce our rights.
Breaches of our online commerce security could occur and could have an adverse effect on our reputation.
A significant barrier to online commerce and communications is the secure transmission of confidential information over public networks. There can be no assurance that advances in computer capabilities, new discoveries in the field of cryptography and cybersecurity, or other events or developments will not result in a compromise or breach of the technology used by the Company to protect customer transaction data. If any such compromise of the Company’s security were to occur, it could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s reputation and, therefore, on its business, results of operations and financial condition. Furthermore, a party who is able to circumvent the Company’s security measures could misappropriate proprietary information or cause interruptions in the Company’s operations. The Company may be required to expend significant capital and other resources to protect against such security breaches or to alleviate problems caused by such breaches. Concerns over the security of transactions conducted on the Internet and other online services and the privacy of users may also inhibit the growth of the Internet and other online services generally, and the Web in particular, especially as a means of conducting commercial transactions. To the extent that activities of the Company involve the storage and transmission of proprietary information, security breaches could damage the Company’s reputation and expose the Company to a risk of loss or litigation and possible liability. There can be no assurance that the Company’s security measures will prevent security breaches or that failure to prevent such security breaches will not have a material adverse effect on the Company’s business, results of operations and financial condition.
The Company may not have the ability to manage its growth.
The Company anticipates that significant expansion will be required to address potential growth in its customer base and market opportunities. The Company’s anticipated expansion is expected to place a significant strain on the Company’s management, operational and financial resources. To manage any material growth of its operations and personnel, the Company may be required to improve existing operational and financial systems, procedures and controls and to expand, train and manage its employee base. There can be no assurance that the Company’s planned personnel, systems, procedures and controls will be adequate to support the Company’s future operations, that management will be able to hire, train, retain, motivate and manage required personnel or that the Company’s management will be able to successfully identify, manage and exploit existing and potential market opportunities. If the Company is unable to manage growth effectively, its business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations may be materially adversely affected.
We rely on the performance of highly skilled personnel, and if we are unable to attract, retain and motivate well-qualified employees, our business could be harmed.
The Company is, and will be, heavily dependent on the skill, acumen and services of the management and other employees of the Company. Our future success depends on our continuing ability to attract, develop, motivate and retain highly qualified and skilled employees. Qualified individuals are in high demand, and we may incur significant costs to attract them. In addition, the loss of any of our senior management or key employees could materially adversely affect our ability to execute our business plan, and we may not be able to find adequate replacements. All of our officers and employees are at-will employees, which means they may terminate their employment relationship with us at any time, and their knowledge of our business and industry would be extremely difficult to replace. We cannot ensure that we will be able to retain the services of any members of our senior management or other key employees. If we do not succeed in attracting well-qualified employees or retaining and motivating existing employees, our business could be harmed.
Illegal use of our ZCITY platform could result in adverse consequences to the Company.
Despite measures the Company will implement to detect and prevent identify theft or other fraud, our ZCITY platform remains susceptible to potentially illegal or improper uses. Despite measures the Company will take to detect and lessen the risk of this kind of conduct, the Company cannot assure that these measures will succeed. The Company’s business could suffer if customers use the ZCITY platform for illegal or improper purposes.
If merchants on our ZCITY platform are operating illegally, the Company could be subject to civil and criminal lawsuits, administrative action, and prosecution for, among other things, money laundering or for aiding and abetting violations of law. The Company would lose the revenues associated with these accounts and could be subject to material penalties and fines, both of which would seriously harm its business.
We are subject to certain risks by virtue of our international operations.
We operate and expand internationally. We expect to expand our international operations significantly by accessing new markets abroad and expanding our offerings in new languages: not less than all languages in SEA countries and Japan. Our platform is now available in English and several other languages. However, we may have difficulty modifying our technology and content for use in non-English-speaking markets or fostering new communities in non-English-speaking markets. Our ability to manage our business and conduct our operations internationally requires considerable management attention and resources, and is subject to the particular challenges of supporting a rapidly growing business in an environment of multiple languages, cultures, customs, legal systems, alternative dispute systems, regulatory systems, and commercial infrastructures. Furthermore, in most international markets, we would not be the first entrant, and our competitors may be better positioned than we are to succeed. Expanding internationally may subject us to risks that we have either not faced before or increase our exposure to risks that we currently face, including risks associated with:
· the enforceability of our intellectual property rights;
· credit risk and higher levels of payment fraud;
· compliance with anti-bribery laws;
· currency exchange rate fluctuations;
· political and economic instability in some countries;
· higher costs of doing business internationally.
We do not have liability business interruption, litigation or natural disaster insurance.
We do not have any business liability, disruption insurance or any other forms of insurance coverage for our operations in Malaysia because our business is still in planning and early stage. Any potential liability, business interruption, litigation or natural disaster may result in our business incurring substantial costs and the diversion of resources.
The economy of Malaysia in general might not grow as quickly as expected, which could adversely affect our revenues and business prospects.
Our business and prospects depend on the continuing development of the economy in Malaysia. We cannot assure you that the Malaysian economy will continue to grow at the same pace as in the past. Economic growth is determined by countless factors, and it is extremely difficult to predict with any level of absolute certainty. In the event that the Malaysian economy suffers, demand for the services and/or products of our wholly owned subsidiary may diminish, which would in turn result in decreased likelihood of profitability. This could in turn result in a substantial need for restructuring of our business objectives and could result in a partial or entire loss of an investment in our Company.
We face the risk that changes in the policies of the Malaysian government could have a significant impact upon the business we may be able to conduct in Malaysia and the profitability of such business.
Policies of the Malaysian government can have significant effects on the economic conditions of Malaysia. A change in policies by the Malaysian government could adversely affect our interests by, among other factors: changes in laws, regulations or the interpretation thereof, confiscatory taxation, restrictions on currency conversion, imports or sources of supplies, or the expropriation or nationalization of private enterprises. We cannot assure you that the government will continue to pursue current policies or that such policies may not be significantly altered, especially in the event of a change in leadership, social or political disruption, or other circumstances affecting Malaysia’s political, economic and social environment.
We are subject to foreign exchange control policies in Malaysia.
The ability of our subsidiary to pay dividends or make other payments to us may be restricted by the foreign exchange control policies in the countries where we operate. For example, there are foreign exchange policies in Malaysia which support the monitoring of capital flows into and out of the country in order to preserve its financial and economic stability. The foreign exchange policies are administered by the Foreign Exchange Administration, an arm of Bank Negara Malaysia (“BNM”), the central bank of Malaysia. The foreign exchange policies monitor and regulate both residents and non-residents. Under the current Foreign Exchange Administration rules issued by BNM, non-residents are free to repatriate any amount of funds from Malaysia in foreign currency other than the currency of Israel at any time (subject to limited exceptions), including capital, divestment proceeds, profits, dividends, rental, fees and interest arising from investment in Malaysia, subject to any withholding tax. In the event BNM or any other country where we operate introduces any restrictions in the future, we may be affected in our ability to repatriate dividends or other payments from our subsidiary in Malaysia or in such other countries. Since we are a holding company and rely principally on dividends and other payments from our subsidiary for our cash requirements, any restrictions on such dividends or other payments could materially and adversely affect our liquidity, financial condition and results of operations.
Malaysia is experiencing substantial inflationary pressures which may prompt the governments to take action to control the growth of the economy and inflation that could lead to a significant decrease in our profitability.
While the Malaysian economy has experienced rapid growth over the last two decades, they have also experienced inflationary pressures. As governments take steps to address inflationary pressures, there may be significant changes in the availability of bank credits, interest rates, limitations on loans, restrictions on currency conversions and foreign investment. There also may be imposition of price controls. If our revenues rise at a rate that is insufficient to compensate for the rise in our costs, it may have an adverse effect on our profitability. If these or other similar restrictions are imposed by a government to influence the economy, it may lead to a slowing of economic growth, which may harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.
If inflation increases significantly in SEA countries, our business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects could be materially and adversely affected.
Should inflation in SEA countries, including Malaysia, increase significantly, our costs, including our staff costs are expected to increase. Furthermore, high inflation rates could have an adverse effect on the countries’ economic growth, business climate and dampen consumer purchasing power. As a result, a high inflation rate in SEA countries, including Malaysia, could materially and adversely affect our business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects.
Any potential disruption in and other risks relating to our merchants’ supply chain could increase the costs of their products or services to consumers, potentially causing consumers to limit their spending or seek products or services from alternative businesses that may not be registered as a merchant with us, which may ultimately affect the total number of users using our platform and harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our offline and online merchants obtain their products, or the raw materials comprised of their products or used in their services, from manufacturers and distributors located around the world, and may have entered into long-term contracts or exclusive agreements that would ensure their ability to acquire the types and quantities of products or raw materials they desire at acceptable prices and in a timely manner. Any potential disruption in and other risks relating to the offline or online merchants’ supply chain as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic or Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine, could increase the costs of their products or services to consumers, potentially causing consumers to limit their spending or seek products or services from alternative businesses that may not be registered as a merchant with us, which may ultimately affect the total number of users using our platform and harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our business will be exposed to foreign exchange risk.
We derive most of our revenue from the operations of our ZCITY platform in Malaysia and expect to derive our revenue from Malaysia, other SEA countries and Japan in the future. Our functional currencies will by necessity be the currencies of the countries of SEA and Japan. Our reporting currency is the U.S. dollar. We translate our results of operations using the average exchange rate for the period, unless the average is not a reasonable approximation of the cumulative effect of the rates prevailing on the transaction dates, in which case income and expenses are translated at the rate on the dates of the transactions, and we translate our financial position at the period-end exchange rate. Accordingly, any significant fluctuation between the currencies of countries of SEA and Japan on the one hand and the U.S. dollar on the other could expose us to foreign exchange risk.
Some of the currencies of the countries of SEA are not freely convertible. The foreign exchange management regime of many SEA countries has transitioned from a system of fixed multiple exchange rates controlled by the state banks to a system of flexible exchange rates regulated largely by market forces, though transfers of currency is regulated and controlled in some countries. A significant depreciation in many of the currencies of countries of SEA against major foreign currencies may have a material adverse impact on our results of operations and financial condition because our reporting currency is the U.S. dollar. There can be no assurance, that the governments will continue to relax their foreign exchange regulations, that they will maintain the same foreign exchange policy or that there will be sufficient foreign currency available in the market for currency conversions. If, in the future, the regulations restrict our ability to convert local currencies or there is insufficient foreign currency available in the market, we may be unable to meet any foreign currency payment obligations.
Fluctuations in exchange rates in the Malaysian Ringgit (“RM”) could adversely affect our business and the value of our securities.
The value of the RM against the U.S. dollar and other currencies may fluctuate and is affected by, among other things, changes in Malaysia’s political and economic conditions. The value of our common stock will be indirectly affected by the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollars and RM and between those currencies and other currencies in which our revenue may be denominated. Appreciation or depreciation in the value of the RM relative to the U.S. dollar would affect our financial results reported in U.S. dollar terms without giving effect to any underlying change in our business or results of operations. As we rely entirely on revenues earned in Malaysia, any significant revaluation of RM may materially and adversely affect our cash flows, revenues and financial condition. For example, to the extent that we need to convert U.S. dollars we receive from an offering of our securities into RM for our operations, appreciation of the RM against the U.S. dollar could cause the RM equivalent of U.S. dollars to be reduced and therefore could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Conversely, if we decide to convert our RM into U.S. dollars for the purpose of making dividend payments on our common stock or for other business purposes and the U.S. dollar appreciates against the RM, the U.S. dollar equivalent of the RM we convert would be reduced. In addition, the depreciation of significant U.S. dollar denominated assets could result in a change to our operations and a reduction in the value of these assets.
Geopolitical conditions, including acts of war or terrorism or unrest in the regions in which we operate could adversely affect our business.
Most of our operations and business activities are conducted in Malaysia, whose economy and legal system remain susceptible to risks associated with an emerging economy and which is subject to higher geopolitical risks than developed countries. Social and political unrest could give rise to various risks, such as loss of employment and safety and security risks to persons and property. Additionally, our operations could be disrupted by acts of war, terrorist activity or other similar events, including the current or anticipated impact of military conflict and related sanctions imposed on Russia, Belarus and certain individuals and entities connected to Russian or Belarusian political, business, and financial organizations by the United States and other countries due to Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine. It is not possible to predict the broader consequences of the conflict, including related geopolitical tensions, and the measures and retaliatory actions taken by the U.S. and other countries in respect thereof as well as any counter measures or retaliatory actions by Russia or Belarus in response, including, for example, potential cyberattacks or the disruption of energy exports, is likely to cause regional instability, geopolitical shifts, and could materially adversely affect global trade, currency exchange rates, regional economies and the global economy. Any such event may in turn have a material and adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial position.
Because our principal assets are located outside of the United States and all of our directors and all our officers reside outside of the United States, it may be difficult for you to enforce your rights based on U.S. Federal Securities Laws against us and our officers and directors or to enforce a judgment of a United States court against us or our officers and directors.
All of our directors and officers reside outside of the United States. In addition, substantially all of our assets are located outside of the United States. It may therefore be difficult for investors in the United States to enforce their legal rights based on the civil liability provisions of the U.S. federal securities laws against us in the courts of either the U.S. or Malaysia and, even if civil judgments are obtained in U.S. courts, to enforce such judgments in Malaysian courts.
Our failure to maintain effective internal controls over financial reporting could have an adverse impact on us.
We are required to establish and maintain appropriate internal controls over financial reporting. Failure to establish those controls, or any failure of those controls once established, could adversely impact our public disclosures regarding our business, financial condition or results of operations. In addition, management’s assessment of internal controls over financial reporting may identify weaknesses and conditions that need to be addressed in our internal controls over financial reporting or other matters that may raise concerns for investors. Any actual or perceived weaknesses and conditions that need to be addressed in our internal control over financial reporting, disclosure of management’s assessment of our internal controls over financial reporting or disclosure of our public accounting firm’s attestation to or report on management’s assessment of our internal controls over financial reporting may have an adverse impact on the price of our common stock.
Prior to our initial public offering, we have been a private company with limited accounting personnel and other resources with which to address our internal controls and procedures. Our independent registered public accounting firm did not conduct an audit of our internal control over financial reporting. However, in preparing our consolidated financial statements as of and for the year ended June 30, 2022, we and our independent registered public accounting firms have identified 7 material weaknesses and other control deficiencies including significant deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting, as defined in the standards established by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. A “material weakness” is a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting, such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of the company’s annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis.
The material weaknesses identified included: (1) we did not have sufficient full-time personnel with appropriate levels of accounting knowledge and experience to monitor the daily recording of transactions, address complex United States of America generally accepted accounting principles (“U.S. GAAP”) accounting issues and to prepare and review financial statements and related disclosures under U.S. GAAP; (2) we lack of a functional internal audit department or personnel that monitors the consistencies of the preventive internal control procedures and lack of adequate policies and procedures in internal audit function to ensure that our policies and procedures have been carried out as planned; (3) we lack of proper procedures developed and implemented for IT risk assessment and vulnerability management; (4) we lack of proper procedures developed and implemented for access to systems and data, which include user account management and password management; (5) we lack of proper procedures developed and implemented for segregation of duties and related monitoring; (6) we lack of proper procedures identified related party transaction which lead to revision of previously issued financial statements (See Note 2 of the accompanying consolidated financial statement footnotes); and (7) we lack of proper procedures developed and implemented for third party IT service vendor risk assessment and management
.
Following the identification of the material weaknesses and control deficiencies, we plan to take remedial measures including (i) hiring more qualified accounting personnel with relevant U.S. GAAP and SEC reporting experience and qualifications to strengthen the financial reporting function and to set up a financial and system control framework; (ii) implementing regular and continuous U.S. GAAP accounting and financial reporting training programs for our accounting and financial reporting personnel; (iii) establishing internal audit function by engaging an external consulting firm to assist us with assessment of Sarbanes-Oxley Act compliance requirements and improvement of overall internal control; and (iv) strengthening corporate governance. However, the implementation of these measures may not fully address the material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting. Our failure to correct the material weaknesses or our failure to discover and address any other material weaknesses or control deficiencies could result in inaccuracies in our consolidated financial statements and could also impair our ability to comply with applicable financial reporting requirements and related regulatory filings on a timely basis. As a result, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects, as well as the trading price of our common stocks, may be materially and adversely affected. Moreover, ineffective internal control over financial reporting significantly hinders our ability to prevent fraud.
A control system, no matter how well conceived and operated, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance that the objectives of the control system are met. In addition, the design of a control system must reflect the fact that there are resource constraints and the benefit of controls must be relative to their costs. Because of the inherent limitations in all control systems, no system of controls can provide absolute assurance that all control issues and instances of fraud, if any, within our company have been detected. These inherent limitations include the realities that judgments in decision-making can be faulty and that breakdowns can occur because of simple error or mistake. Further, controls can be circumvented by individual acts of some persons, by collusion of two or more persons, or by management override of the controls. The design of any system of controls is also based in part upon certain assumptions about the likelihood of future events, and there can be no assurance that any design will succeed in achieving its stated goals under all potential future conditions. Over time, a control may become inadequate because of changes in conditions or the degree of compliance with policies or procedures may deteriorate. Because of inherent limitations in a cost-effective control system, misstatements due to error or fraud may occur and may not be detected.
If we fail to have effective controls and procedures for financial reporting in place, we could be unable to provide timely and accurate financial information which could result in an investigation by the SEC and civil or criminal sanctions; investors losing confidence in the accuracy of our periodic reports filed under the Exchange Act; and a decline in our stock price.
We are an “emerging growth company” under the JOBS Act and we cannot be certain if the reduced disclosure requirements applicable to emerging growth companies will make our common stock less attractive to investors.
We are an “emerging growth company,” as defined in the JOBS Act, and we may take advantage of certain exemptions from various reporting requirements that are not applicable to other public companies that are not “emerging growth companies” including, but not limited to, not being required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports and proxy statements, and exemptions from the requirements of holding a nonbinding advisory vote on executive compensation and shareholder approval of any golden parachute payments not previously approved. We cannot predict if investors will find our common stock less attractive because we may rely on these exemptions. If some investors find our common stock less attractive as a result, there may be a less active trading market for our common stock and our stock price may be more volatile.
In addition, Section 107 of the JOBS Act also provides that an “emerging growth company” can take advantage of the extended transition period provided in Section 7(a)(2)(B) of the Securities Act of 1933 (the “Securities Act”) for complying with new or revised accounting standards. In other words, an “emerging growth company” can delay the adoption of certain accounting standards until those standards would otherwise apply to private companies. We are choosing to take advantage of the extended transition period for complying with new or revised accounting standards.
We will remain an “emerging growth company” until the last day of the fiscal year following the fifth anniversary of the date of the first sale of our common stock pursuant to an effective registration statement under the Securities Act, although we will lose that status sooner if our revenues exceed $1.07 billion, if we issue more than $1 billion in non-convertible debt in a three year period, or if the market value of our common stock that is held by non-affiliates exceeds $700 million as of the last day of our most recently completed second fiscal quarter.
The elimination of personal liability against our directors and officers under Delaware law and the existence of
indemnification rights held by our directors, officers and employees may result in substantial expenses.
Our certificate of incorporation, as amended (“Certificate of Incorporation”) eliminates the personal liability of our directors and officers to us and our stockholders for damages for breach of fiduciary duty as a director or officer to the extent permissible under Delaware law. Further, our bylaws (“Bylaws”) provide that we are obligated to indemnify each of our directors or officers to the fullest extent authorized by the Delaware law and, subject to certain conditions, advance the expenses incurred by any director or officer in defending any action, suit or proceeding prior to its final disposition. Those indemnification obligations could expose us to substantial expenditures to cover the cost of settlement or damage awards against our directors or officers, which we may be unable to afford. Further, those provisions and resulting costs may discourage us or our stockholders from bringing a lawsuit against any of our current or former directors or officers for breaches of their fiduciary duties, even if such actions might otherwise benefit our stockholders.
We have not paid dividends in the past and do not expect to pay dividends in the future, and any return on investment may be limited to the value of our stock.
We have never paid cash dividends on our common stock and do not anticipate paying cash dividends on our common stock in the foreseeable future. We currently intend to retain any future earnings to support the development of our business and do not anticipate paying cash dividends in the foreseeable future. Our payment of any future dividends will be at the discretion of our Board after taking into account various factors, including, but not limited to, our financial condition, operating results, cash needs, growth plans and the terms of any credit agreements that we may be a party to at the time. In addition, our ability to pay dividends on our common stock may be limited by Delaware state law. Accordingly, investors must rely on sales of their common stock after price appreciation, which may never occur, as the only way to realize a return on their investment. Investors seeking cash dividends should not purchase our common stock.
Our business has been, and may continue to be materially adversely affected by the recent coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.
The current outbreak of COVID-19 has globally resulted in loss of life, business closures, restrictions on travel, and widespread cancellation of social gatherings. According to the IMF, Malaysia’s GDP growth averaged more than 4.8% from 2016 to 2019, but contracted by 6.0% in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To help counter the transmission of COVID-19, the government of Malaysia initiated movement control orders (“MCO”), the first effective March 18, 2020. The MCO had resulted in quarantines, travel restrictions, and the temporary closure of stores and facilities in Malaysia. Since then, there have been a series of variations of the first MCO which are periodically imposed (in different parts of the country) depending on the increase or decrease in the rate of infection in a particular state or region. Following the expiration of the first MCO, there have been a series of orders including the Conditional Movement Control Order, Recovery Movement Order, Enhanced MCO and the Targeted Enhanced MCO. These orders were made under the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988 (PCID Act) setting out permitted and prohibited activities and conditions to be complied with to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
On June 15, 2021, the Malaysian Prime Minister unveiled the National Recovery Plan (“NRP”) which comprises four phases with the first phase imposing the most stringent Standard Operating Procedures (“SOPs”). At the time of writing various states in Malaysia have since transitioned onto different phases depending on how successfully they have managed to contain the outbreak. For example, Labuan has already transitioned to the fourth phase with all economic sectors there being allowed to operate with 100% workforce subject to the prescribed SOPs whereas some states such as Selangor remains in the first phase.
Parliament met for the first time this year on July 26, 2021. Malaysia pressed on with its National COVID-19 Immunization Plan, fast inoculating of its residents. COVID-19 infections started to drop below the 10,000 mark daily, beginning October 3, 2021. Effective October 11, 2021, interstate and international travel restrictions were lifted for residents who had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as the country achieved its target of inoculating 90% of its adult population.
Malaysia officially transitioned to the endemic phase of COVID-19 effective April 1, 2022. Restrictions on businesses and people are minimal. Meanwhile, the government continues to encourage inoculation for those between the ages of 5 to 11 years and its adolescent group which comprised those between the ages 12 to 17. Adults who have been fully vaccinated, i.e. received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine are encouraged to take booster shots. Starting September 7, 2022, masks in most indoor areas in Malaysia will no longer be compulsory.
The extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic impacts our business will depend on future developments, which are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted at this time, including:
· new information which may emerge concerning the severity of the disease;
· the duration and spread of the outbreak;
· other business disruptions that affect our workforce;
· the impact on capital and financial markets; and
In addition, the current outbreak of COVID-19 has resulted in a widespread global health crisis and adversely affected global economies and financial markets, and similar public health threats could do so in the future. Such events have impacted, and could in the future impact, demand for merchants and consumer purchase patterns, which in turn, could adversely affect our revenue and results of operations.
Furthermore, if a virus or other disease is transmitted by human contact, as is the case with COVID-19, our employees and any constituent of our network may become infected, or may choose, or be advised, to avoid any contact with others, any of which may adversely affect our ability to provide our ZCITY platform and for our merchants and consumers to use our ZCITY platform. In addition, shelter-in-place orders and similar regulations impact merchants’ ability to operate their businesses, consumers’ ability to pick up orders, and our merchants’ ability to make deliveries during certain times, or at all. Even if merchants are able to continue to operate their businesses, many may operate with limited hours, selection and capacity and other limitations. Any limitations on or disruptions or closures of merchants’ businesses could adversely affect our business.
Even if a virus or other disease does not spread significantly and such measures are not implemented, the perceived risk of infection or significant health risk may adversely affect our business. Merchants may be perceived as unsafe during such public health threats, even for order delivery or pickup. If the services offered through our ZCITY platform or at other businesses in our industry become a significant risk for transmitting COVID-19 or similar public health threats, or if there is a public perception that such risk exists, demand for the use of our ZCITY platform would be adversely affected. Any negative impact on consumers’ willingness or ability to order delivery or complete a pickup order, could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Substantially all of our revenues are concentrated in Malaysia pending expansion into other markets in SEA and East Asia regions. Consequently, our results of operations will likely be adversely, and may be materially, affected, to the extent that the COVID-19 pandemic or any epidemic harms Malaysia’s economy and society and the global economy in general. Any potential impact to our results will depend on, to a large extent, future developments and new information that may emerge regarding the duration and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic and the actions taken by government authorities and other entities to contain the COVID-19 pandemic or treat its impact, almost all of which are beyond our control. If the disruptions posed by the COVID-19 pandemic or other matters of global concern continue for an extensive period of time, the operations of our business may be materially adversely affected.
To the extent the COVID-19 pandemic or a similar public health threat has an impact on our business, it is likely to also have the effect of heightening many of the other risks described in this “
Risk Factors
” section.
Regulatory Risks
Failure to comply with laws and regulations applicable to our business could subject us to fines and penalties and could also cause us to lose customers or otherwise harm our business.
Our business is subject to regulation by various governmental agencies in Malaysia, including agencies responsible for monitoring and enforcing compliance with various legal obligations, such as privacy and data protection-related laws and regulations, intellectual property laws, employment and labor laws, workplace safety, governmental trade laws, import and export controls, anti-corruption and anti-bribery laws, and tax laws and regulations. These laws and regulations impose added costs on our business. Noncompliance with applicable regulations or requirements could subject us to:
· investigations, enforcement actions, and sanctions;
· mandatory changes to our network and products;
· disgorgement of profits, fines, and damages;
· civil and criminal penalties or injunctions;
· claims for damages by our customers or channel partners;
· termination of contracts;
· temporary or permanent debarment from sales to public service organizations.
If any governmental sanctions are imposed, or if we do not prevail in any possible civil or criminal litigation, our business, results of operations, and financial condition could be adversely affected. In addition, responding to any action will likely result in a significant diversion of our management’s attention and resources and an increase in professional fees. Enforcement actions and sanctions could materially harm our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
Any reviews by regulatory agencies or legislatures may result in substantial regulatory fines, changes to our business practices, and other penalties, which could negatively affect our business and results of operations. Changes in social, political, and regulatory conditions or in laws and policies governing a wide range of topics may cause us to change our business practices. Further, our expansion into a variety of new fields also could raise a number of new regulatory issues. These factors could negatively affect our business and results of operations in material ways.
Moreover, we are exposed to the risk of misconduct, errors and failure to functions by our management, employees and parties that we collaborate with, who may from time to time be subject to litigation and regulatory investigations and proceedings or otherwise face potential liability and penalties in relation to noncompliance with applicable laws and regulations, which could harm our reputation and business.
Regulation of the internet generally could have adverse consequences on our business.
We are also subject to regulations and laws in Malaysia specifically governing the internet and e-commerce. Existing and future laws and regulations may impede the growth of the Internet, e-commerce or other online services, and increase the cost of providing online services. These regulations and laws may cover sweepstakes, taxation, tariffs, user privacy, data protection, pricing, content, copyrights, distribution, electronic contracts and other communications, consumer protection, broadband residential Internet access and the characteristics and quality of services. It is not clear how existing laws governing issues such as property ownership, sales, use and other taxes, libel and personal privacy apply to the internet and e-commerce. Unfavorable resolution of these issues may harm our business and results of operations.
Privacy regulations could have adverse consequences on our business.
We receive, collect, store, process, transfer, and use personal information and other user data. There are numerous international laws and regulations regarding privacy, data protection, information security, and the collection, storing, sharing, use, processing, transfer, disclosure, and protection of personal information and other content, the scope of which are changing, subject to differing interpretations, and may be inconsistent among countries, or conflict with other laws and regulations. We are also subject to the terms of our privacy policies and obligations to third parties related to privacy, data protection, and information security. We strive to comply with applicable laws, regulations, policies, and other legal obligations relating to privacy, data protection, and information security to the extent possible. However, the regulatory framework for privacy and data protection worldwide is, and is likely to remain for the foreseeable future, uncertain and complex, and it is possible that these or other actual or alleged obligations may be interpreted and applied in a manner that we do not anticipate or that is inconsistent from one jurisdiction to another and may conflict with other rules or our practices. Further, any significant change to applicable laws, regulations, or industry practices regarding the collection, use, retention, security, or disclosure of our users’ data, or their interpretation, or any changes regarding the manner in which the express or implied consent of users for the collection, use, retention, or disclosure of such data must be obtained, could increase our costs and require us to modify our services and features, possibly in a material manner, which we may be unable to complete, and may limit our ability to store and process user data or develop new services and features.
We also expect that there will continue to be new laws, regulations, and industry standards concerning privacy, data protection, and information security proposed and enacted in various jurisdictions.
Any failure or perceived failure by us to comply with our posted privacy policies, our privacy-related obligations to users or other third parties, or any other legal obligations or regulatory requirements relating to privacy, data protection, or information security may result in governmental investigations or enforcement actions, litigation, claims, or public statements against us by consumer advocacy groups or others and could result in significant liability, cause our users to lose trust in us, and otherwise have an adverse effect on our reputation and business. Furthermore, the costs of compliance with, and other burdens imposed by, the laws, regulations, and policies that are applicable to the businesses of our users may limit the adoption and use of, and reduce the overall demand for, our ZCITY platform.
Additionally, if third parties we work with violate applicable laws, regulations, or agreements, such violations may put our users’ data at risk, could result in governmental investigations or enforcement actions, fines, litigation, claims, or public statements against us by consumer advocacy groups or others and could result in significant liability, cause our users to lose trust in us, and otherwise have an adverse effect on our reputation and business. Further, public scrutiny of or complaints about technology companies or their data handling or data protection practices, even if unrelated to our business, industry, or operations, may lead to increased scrutiny of technology companies, including us, and may cause government agencies to enact additional regulatory requirements, or to modify their enforcement or investigation activities, which may increase our costs and risks.
Regulation of gift cards or “E-vouchers” could have adverse consequences on our business.
Our platform’s payment system inevitably provides our customers with reward points that may or may not be deemed gift certificates, store gift cards, general-use prepaid cards, or other vouchers, or “gift cards”, subject to, various laws of multiple jurisdictions. Many of these laws include specific disclosure requirements and prohibitions or limitations on the use of expiration dates and the imposition of certain fees. Various companies that provided deal products similar to ours around the world are currently or were defendants in purported class action lawsuits.
The application of various other laws and regulations to our products is uncertain. These include laws and regulations pertaining to unclaimed and abandoned property, partial redemption, revenue-sharing restrictions on certain trade groups and professions, sales and other local taxes and the sale of alcoholic beverages. In addition, we may become, or be determined to be, subject to United States federal or state laws or laws in Malaysia or other countries where we operate regulating money transmitters or aimed at preventing money laundering or terrorist financing, including the Bank Secrecy Act, the USA Patriot Act and other similar future laws or regulations in the United States and in the applicable SEA or East Asia countries.
If we become subject to claims or are required to alter our business practices as a result of current or future laws and regulations, our revenue could decrease, our costs could increase and our business could otherwise be harmed. In addition, the costs and expenses associated with defending any actions related to such additional laws and regulations and any payments of related penalties, fines, judgments or settlements could harm our business.
The requirements of being a public company are complex and will increase costs.
As a public company, we will be subject to the reporting requirements of the Exchange Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (the “Sarbanes-Oxley Act”), the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, and other applicable securities rules and regulations. Compliance with these rules and regulations will increase our legal and financial compliance costs, make some activities more difficult, time-consuming or costly and increase demand on our systems and resources. The Exchange Act requires, among other things, that we file annual, quarterly and current reports with respect to our business and operating results. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires, among other things, that we maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting. In order to maintain and, if required, improve our disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting to meet this standard, significant resources and management oversight may be required. As a result, management’s attention may be diverted from other business concerns, which could harm our business and operating results. We may need to hire more employees in the future to comply with these requirements, which will increase our costs and expenses.
In addition, changing laws, regulations and standards relating to corporate governance and public disclosure are creating uncertainty for public companies, increasing legal and financial compliance costs and making some activities more time consuming. These laws, regulations and standards are subject to varying interpretations, in many cases due to their lack of specificity, and, as a result, their application in practice may evolve over time as new guidance is provided by regulatory and governing bodies. This could result in continuing uncertainty regarding compliance matters and higher costs necessitated by ongoing revisions to disclosure and governance practices. We intend to invest resources to comply with evolving laws, regulations and standards, and this investment may result in increased general and administrative expenses and a diversion of management’s time and attention from revenue-generating activities to compliance activities. If our efforts to comply with new laws, regulations, and standards differ from the activities intended by regulatory or governing bodies due to ambiguities related to practice, regulatory authorities may initiate legal proceedings against us and our business may be harmed.
We also expect that being a public company and these new rules and regulations will make it more expensive for us to obtain director and officer liability insurance, and we may be required to accept reduced coverage or incur substantially higher costs to obtain coverage. These factors could also make it more difficult for us to attract and retain qualified members of our board of directors (“Board”), particularly to serve on our audit committee and renumeration committee, and qualified executive officers.
As a result of disclosure of information in this prospectus and in filings required of a public company, our business and financial condition will become more visible, which we believe may result in increased threatened or actual litigation, including by competitors and other third parties. If such claims are successful, our business and operating results could be harmed, and even if the claims do not result in litigation or are resolved in our favor, these claims, and the time and resources necessary to resolve them, could divert the resources of our management and harm our business and operating results.
Failure to comply with the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and Malaysia anti-corruption laws could subject us to penalties and other adverse consequences.
We are required to comply the Malaysia’s anti-corruption laws and the United States Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which generally prohibits U.S. companies from engaging in bribery or other prohibited payments to foreign officials for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business. In addition, we are required to maintain records that accurately and fairly represent our transactions and have an adequate system of internal accounting controls. Foreign companies, including some of our competitors, are not subject to these prohibitions. Corruption, extortion, bribery, pay-offs, theft and other fraudulent practices occur from time-to-time in Malaysia. If our competitors engage in these practices, they may receive preferential treatment from personnel of some companies, giving our competitors an advantage in securing business or from government officials who might give them priority in obtaining new licenses, which would put us at a disadvantage. Although we inform our personnel that such practices are illegal, we cannot assure you that our employees or other agents will not engage in such conduct for which we might be held responsible. If our employees or other agents are found to have engaged in such practices, we could suffer severe penalties and other consequences that may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, our brand and reputation, our sales activities or the price of our ordinary shares could be adversely affected if we become the target of any negative publicity as a result of actions taken by our employees or other agents.
Litigation is costly and time consuming and could have a material adverse effect our business, results or operations and reputation.
The Company and/or its directors and officers may be subject to a variety of civil or other legal proceedings, with or without merit. From time to time in the ordinary course of its business, we may become involved in various legal proceedings, including commercial, employment and other litigation and claims, as well as governmental and other regulatory investigations and proceedings. Such matters can be time-consuming, divert management’s attention and resources and cause us to incur significant expenses. Furthermore, because litigation is inherently unpredictable, the results of any such actions may have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results or financial condition.
Even if the claims are without merit, the costs associated with defending these types of claims may be substantial, both in terms of time, money, and management distraction. In particular, patent and other intellectual property litigation may be protracted and expensive, and the results are difficult to predict and may require us to stop offering certain features, purchase licenses or modify our products and features while we develop non-infringing substitutes or may result in significant settlement costs.
The results of litigation and claims to which we may be subject cannot be predicted with certainty. Even if these matters do not result in litigation or are resolved in our favor or without significant cash settlements, these matters, and the time and resources necessary to litigate or resolve them, could harm our business, results or operations and reputation.
We face potential liability and expense for legal claims based on the content on our ZCITY platform.
We face potential liability and expense for legal claims relating to the information that we publish on our website and our ZCITY platform, including claims for copyright or trademark infringement, among others. These claims could divert management time and attention away from our business and result in significant costs to investigate and defend, regardless of the merits of the claims. In some instances, we may elect or be compelled to remove content or may be forced to pay substantial damages if we are unsuccessful in our efforts to defend against these claims. If we elect or are compelled to remove valuable content from our website or mobile app, our ZCITY platform may become less useful to consumers and our traffic may decline, which could have a negative impact on our business and financial performance.
Our intellectual property rights may be inadequate to protect us against others claiming violations of their proprietary rights and the cost of enforcement could be significant.
The future success of our business is dependent upon the intellectual property rights surrounding our technology, including trade secrets, know-how and continuing technological innovation. Although we will seek to protect our proprietary rights, our actions may be inadequate to protect any proprietary rights or to prevent others from claiming violations of their proprietary rights. There can be no assurance that other companies are not investigating or developing other technologies that are similar to our technology. In addition, effective intellectual property protection may be unenforceable or limited in certain countries, and the global nature of the Internet makes it impossible to control the ultimate designation of our technology. Any of these claims, with or without merit, could subject us to costly litigation. If the protection of proprietary rights is inadequate to prevent unauthorized use or appropriation by third parties, the value of our brand and other intangible assets may be diminished. Any of these events could have an adverse effect on our business and financial results.
Effective trade secret, copyright, trademark and domain name protection is expensive to develop and maintain, both in terms of initial and ongoing registration requirements and expenses and the costs of defending our rights. We are seeking to protect our trademarks and domain names in an increasing number of jurisdictions, a process that is expensive and may not be successful or which we may not pursue in every location. Litigation may be necessary to enforce our intellectual property rights, protect our respective trade secrets or determine the validity and scope of proprietary rights claimed by others. Any litigation of this nature, regardless of outcome or merit, could result in substantial costs and diversion of management and technical resources, any of which could adversely affect our business and operating results. We may incur significant costs in enforcing our trademarks against those who attempt to imitate our brand. If we fail to maintain, protect and enhance our intellectual property rights, our business and operating results may be harmed.
If we are unable to protect the confidentiality of our trade secrets, our business and competitive position could be harmed.
In addition to patent protection, we also rely upon copyright and trade secret protection, as well as non-disclosure agreements and invention assignment agreements with our employees, consultants and third parties, to protect our confidential and proprietary information. In addition to contractual measures, we try to protect the confidential nature of our proprietary information using commonly accepted physical and technological security measures. Such measures may not, for example, in the case of misappropriation of a trade secret by an employee or third party with authorized access, provide adequate protection for our proprietary information. Our security measures may not prevent an employee or consultant from misappropriating our trade secrets and providing them to a competitor, and recourse we take against such misconduct may not provide an adequate remedy to protect our interests fully. Unauthorized parties may also attempt to copy or reverse engineer certain aspects of our product that we consider proprietary. Enforcing a claim that a party illegally disclosed or misappropriated a trade secret can be difficult, expensive and time-consuming, and the outcome is unpredictable. Even though we use commonly accepted security measures, trade secret violations are often a matter of state law, and the criteria for protection of trade secrets can vary among different jurisdictions. In addition, trade secrets may be independently developed by others in a manner that could prevent legal recourse by us. If any of our confidential or proprietary information, such as our trade secrets, were to be disclosed or misappropriated, or if any such information was independently developed by a competitor, our business and competitive position could be harmed.
Third parties may assert that our employees or consultants have wrongfully used or disclosed confidential information or misappropriated trade secrets.
We employ individuals who previously worked with other companies, including our competitors or potential competitors. Although we try to ensure that our employees and consultants do not use the proprietary information or know-how of others in their work for us, we may be subject to claims that we or our employees, consultants or independent contractors have inadvertently or otherwise used or disclosed intellectual property, including trade secrets or other proprietary information, of a former employer or other third party. Litigation may be necessary to defend against these claims. If we fail in defending any such claims or settling those claims, in addition to paying monetary damages or a settlement payment, we may lose valuable intellectual property rights or personnel. Even if we are successful in defending against such claims, litigation could result in substantial costs and be a distraction to management and other employees.
Item 1B
.
Unresolved Staff Comments
None.
Item 2. Properties.
Our principal executive offices are located at 276 5th Avenue, Suite 704 #739, New York, New York 10001 and
No.29, Jalan PPU 2A, Taman Perindustrian Pusat Bandar Puchong, 47100 Puchong, Selangor, Malaysia.
We lease and maintain our offices, and we
currently do not own any real estate.
Item 3. Legal Proceedings
We may be subject to legal disputes and subject to claims that arise in the ordinary course of business. We are not a party or subject to any pending legal proceedings the resolution of which is expected to have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, cash flows or financial condition.
Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures
Not applicable.
PART II
Item 5. Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities.
Market Information
Our common stock is trading on the Nasdaq Capital Market under the symbol “TGL.”
Holders
As
of December 1, 2022, there were 26 stockholders of record of our common stock. Because many of our shares of common stock are held by brokers and other institutions on behalf of stockholders, this number is not representative of the total number of beneficial owners of our stock.
Dividends
We have never declared or paid any cash dividend on our common stock. We intend to retain any future earnings to finance the operation and expansion of our business and fund our share repurchase program, and we do not expect to pay cash dividends in the foreseeable future.
Securities Authorized for Issuance under Equity Compensation Plans
We have not adopted any equity compensation plans and do not anticipate adopting any equity compensation plans in the near future. Notwithstanding the foregoing, because the Company has limited cash resources at this time, it may issue shares or options to or enter into obligations that are convertible into shares of common stock with its employees and consultants as payment for services or as discretionary bonuses.
Recent Sales of Unregistered Securities
During the fiscal year ended June 30, 2022, the registrant has granted or issued the following securities of the registrant that were not registered under the Securities Act, as amended.
(a)
Issuance of Capital Stock
.
On July 1, 2021, we issued 232,666 shares of our common stock to Exchange Listing LLC pursuant a consulting agreement.
On October 27, 2021, we issued 312,585 shares of our common stock to three individuals pursuant to a Share Swap Agreement, as amended in consideration for all of the equity of Gem Reward Sdn. Bhd.
The issuance of the capital stock listed above was deemed exempt from registration under Section 4(a)(2) of the Securities Act or Regulation D promulgated thereunder in that the issuance of securities were made to an accredited investor and did not involve a public offering. The recipient of such securities represented its intention to acquire the securities for investment purposes only and not with a view to or for sale in connection with any distribution thereof.
(b)
Warrants
.
On July 1, 2021, we issued a five-year warrant to purchase 300,000 shares of our common stock to Exchange Listing, LLC pursuant to a consulting agreement dated July 1, 2021 between us and Exchange Listing, LLC. The warrant has an exercise price of $4.00 per share.
The issuance of the warrants listed above were deemed exempt from registration under Section 4(a)(2) of the Securities Act or Regulation D promulgated thereunder in that the issuance of securities were made to an accredited investor and did not involve a public offering. The recipient of such securities represented its intention to acquire the securities for investment purposes only and not with a view to or for sale in connection with any distribution thereof.
(c)
Option Grants
.
None.
(d)
Issuance of Notes
.
On July 10, 2021 we issued a Convertible Redeemable Note in the principal amount of $36,879.00 to Tan Ann Bee, an existing stockholder of the Company (the “Bee Note”). The Bee Note was due on the third anniversary of the issuance date and does not bear interest unless it has not been converted by the third anniversary of its issuance date, in which case it shall bear interest from the time of issuance at 12% per annum. The Bee Note is prepayable at any time. On June 30, 2021, the Securities Purchase Agreement related to the Bee Note was executed and on such date the Company received $36,879.00 for the purchase of the Bee Note. On August 11, 2022, we converted the Bee Note in full into 5,344 shares of our common stock.
On July 29, 2021 we issued a Convertible Redeemable Note in the principal amount of $236,462.52 to Kainan Resources Sdn Bhd, a Malaysian private limited company (the “Kainan Note 2”). The Kainan Note 2 was due on the third anniversary of the issuance date and does not bear interest unless it has not been converted by the third anniversary of its issuance date, in which case it shall bear interest from the time of issuance at 12% per annum. The Kainan Note 2 is prepayable at any time. On August 11, 2022, we converted the Kainan Note 2 in full into 34,270 shares of our common stock.
On September 22, 2021 we issued a Convertible Redeemable Note in the principal amount of $240,442.41 to Chuah Su Mei, an existing stockholder of the Company (the “Chuah Note”). The Chuah Note was due on the third anniversary of the issuance date and does not bear interest unless it has not been converted by the third anniversary of its issuance date, in which case it shall bear interest from the time of issuance at 12% per annum. On August 11, 2022, we converted the Chuah Note in full into 34,847 shares of our common stock.
On October 20, 2021 we issued a Convertible Redeemable Note in the principal amount of $120,235.66 to Click Development Berhad, a Malaysian company and an existing stockholder of the Company (the “Click Note”), also related party per Note 10 in the consolidated financial statements. The Click Note was due on the third anniversary of the issuance date and does not bear interest unless it has not been converted by the third anniversary of its issuance date, in which case it shall bear interest from the time of issuance at 12% per annum. The Click Note is prepayable at any time. On August 11, 2022, we converted the Click Note in full into 17,425 shares of our common stock.
On November 4, 2021 we issued a Convertible Redeemable Note in the principal amount of $120,555.15 to Whitney Tan Ann Nee , an existing stockholder of the Company (the “Whitney Nee Note”). The Whitney Nee Note was convertible by the Company in full, but not in part, into 17,472 shares of our common stock and such conversion is mandatory upon the listing of our shares of common stock on Nasdaq. The Whitney Nee Note is due on the third anniversary of the issuance date and does not bear interest unless it has not been converted by the third anniversary of its issuance date, in which case it shall bear interest from the time of issuance at 12% per annum. The Whitney Nee Note is prepayable at any time. On August 11, 2022, we converted the Whitney Nee Note in full into 17,472 shares of our common stock.
On November 4, 2021 we issued a Redeemable Convertible Note in the principal amount of $1,013,106.38 to Repro Solution Sdn Bhd, a Malaysian private limited company and an existing stockholder of the Company (the “Repro Note 2”). The Repro Note 2 is convertible by the Company in full, but not in part, into 146,827 shares of our common stock and such conversion is mandatory upon the listing of our shares of common stock on Nasdaq. The Repro Note 2 is due on the third anniversary of the issuance date and does not bear interest unless it has not been converted by the third anniversary of its issuance date, in which case it shall bear interest from the time of issuance at 12% per annum. The Repro Note 2 is prepayable at any time. On August 11, 2022, we converted the Repro Note 2 in full into 146,827 shares of our common stock.
On November 5, 2021 we issued a Convertible Redeemable Note in the principal amount of $108,590.73 to World Cloud Ventures Sdn Bhd, a Malaysian private company and an existing stockholder of the Company (the “World Cloud Note, also related party per Note 10 in the consolidated financial statements The World Cloud Note was due on the third anniversary of the issuance date and does not bear interest unless it has not been converted by the third anniversary of its issuance date, in which case it shall bear interest from the time of issuance at 12% per annum. The World Cloud Note is prepayable at any time. Jau Long “Jerry” Ooi, a Vice President of the Company owns 50% of the equity of World Cloud Ventures Sdn. Bhd. On August 11, 2022, we converted the World Cloud Note in full into 15,738 shares of our common stock.
On January 3, 2022 we issued a Convertible Redeemable Note in the principal amount of $568,308.87 to Cloudmaxx Sdn Bhd, a Malaysian private company (the “Cloudmaxx Note”), also related party per Note 10 in the consolidated financial statements The Cloudmaxx Note was due on the third anniversary of the issuance date and does not bear interest unless it has not been converted by the third anniversary of its issuance date, in which case it shall bear interest from the time of issuance at 12% per annum. Jau Long “Jerry” Ooi, a Vice President of the Company owns 30% of the equity of Cloudmaxx Sdn. Bhd. On August 11, 2022, we converted the Cloudmaxx Note in full into 82,363 shares of our common stock.
On January 3, 2022 we entered into a Loan Agreement (the “Tophill Loan Agreement 1”) with Tophill Holding Sdn. Bhd (“Tophill”), pursuant to which Tophill provided us with a revolving loan facility to borrow up to RM 20,000,000 (approximately $4,800,000) at 3.5% per annum, which is payable on demand. On March 15, 2022 the Tophill Loan Agreement 1 was amended to provide that (i) all principal and accrued and unpaid interest outstanding under the Tophill Loan Agreement 1 on the closing of our initial public offering will automatically be converted into shares of our common stock at a conversion price that is equal to 80% of the initial public offering price and (ii) the Tophill Loan Agreement 1 terminates on the closing date of our initial public offering.
On May 13, 2022 we entered into an additional Loan Agreement (the “Tophill Loan Agreement 2”) with Tophill, pursuant to which Tophill provided us with a revolving loan facility to borrow up to RM 50,000,000 (approximately $11,900,000) with terms that are identical to the Tophill Loan Agreement 1, as amended.
The notes and loan described above was deemed exempt from registration in reliance on Section 4(a)(2) of the Securities Act or Regulation D promulgated thereunder in that the issuance of securities were made to an accredited investor and did not involve a public offering. The recipients of such securities represented its intention to acquire the securities for investment purposes only and not with a view to or for sale in connection with any distribution thereof.
Use of Proceeds from our Initial Public Offering of Common Stock
On August 15, 2022, we closed our initial public offering, in which we sold and issued 2,300,000 shares of our common stock at a price to the public of $4.00 per share. We received $8,235,109.74 in net proceeds from our IPO after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and other offering expenses.
The offer and sale of all of the shares of our common stock in our IPO were registered under the Securities Act pursuant to a registration statement on Form S-1 (File No. 333-264364), which was declared effective by the SEC on August 10, 2022.
There has been no material change in our planned use of the net proceeds from our IPO as described in our final prospectus filed pursuant to Rule 424(b)(4) under the Securities Act with the SEC on August 12, 2022.
Transfer Agent
The transfer agent for the common stock is VStock Transfer LLC,
18 Lafayette Place, Woodmere, New York
, telephone
(212) 828-8436.
Item 6.
The Company is a smaller reporting company as defined by Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act and is not required to provide the information required under this item.
Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.
The following discussion and analysis of our results of operations and financial condition should be read together with our consolidated financial statements and the notes thereto and other financial information, which are included elsewhere in this Report.
This discussion contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include those identified below and those discussed in other sections of this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Our historical results are not necessarily indicative of the results that may be expected for any period in the future.
Our financial statements have been prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP. In addition, our financial statements and the financial information included in this Report reflect our organizational transactions and have been prepared as if our current corporate structure had been in place throughout the relevant periods.
Overview
Treasure Global Inc. (“TGI”, “we”, “our”, or the “Company”) is a holding company incorporated on March 20, 2020, under the laws of the State of Delaware. TGI has no substantive operations other than holding all of the outstanding shares of Gem Reward Sdn. Bhd. (“GEM”), which was established under the laws of the Malaysia on June 6, 2017, through a reverse recapitalization.
Prior to March 11, 2021, TGI and GEM were separate companies under the common control of
Kok Pin “Darren” Tan, which resulted from Mr. Tan’s prior 100% ownership of TGI and his prior 100% voting and investment control over GEM pursuant to the Beneficial Shareholding Agreements. For a more detailed description of the Beneficial Shareholding Agreements and Mr. Tan’s common control over TGI and GEM see
“Prospectus Summary—Corporate Structure.
On March 11, 2021, TGI and GEM were reorganized into a parent subsidiary structure pursuant to the Share Swap Agreement in which TGI exchanged the Swap Shares for all equity of GEM. Pursuant to the Share Swap Agreement, the purchase and sale of the Swap Shares was completed on March 11, 2021, but the issuance of the Swap Shares did not occur until October 27, 2021 when TGI amended its certificate of incorporation to increase the number of its authorized common stock to a number that was sufficient to issue the Swap Shares. As a result of the Share Swap Agreement, (i) GEM became the 100% subsidiary of TGI and Kok Pin “Darren” Tan no longer had any control over the GEM ordinary shares and (ii) Kok Pin “Darren” Tan, the Initial GEM Shareholders and Chong Chan “Sam” Teo owned 100% of the shares of TGI common stock (Kok Pin “Darren” Tan owning approximately 97%). Subsequent to the date of the Share Swap Agreement, Kok Pin “Darren” Tan transferred 9,529,002 of his 10,000,000 shares of TGI common stock to 16 individuals and entities and currently owns less than 5% of our common stock.
On August 15, 2022, we had closed our initial underwritten public offering of 2,300,000 shares of common stock, par value $0.00001 per share, at $4.00 per share. Meanwhile we received net proceeds of approximately $8.2 million, net of underwriting discounts and commissions and fees, and other estimated offering expenses amounted to approximately $1.0 million.
We have created an innovative O2O e-commerce platform business model offering consumers and merchants instant rebates and affiliate cashback programs, while providing a seamless e-payment solution with rebates in both e-commerce (i.e., online) and physical retailers/merchant (i.e., offline) settings.
Our proprietary product is an App branded “ZCITY App”, which was developed through GEM. The ZCITY App was successfully launched in Malaysia June 2020. GEM is equipped with the know-how and expertise to develop additional/add-on technology-based products and services to complement the ZCITY App, thereby growing its reach and user base.
Through simplifying a user’s e-payment gateway experience, as well as by providing great deals, rewards and promotions with every use, we aim to make the ZCITY App Malaysia’s top reward and loyalty platform. Our longer-term goal is for the ZCITY App and its ever-developing technology to become one of the most well-known commercialized applications more broadly in Southeast Asia and Japan.
As of December 5, 2022, we had over 2,312,114registered users and over 1,998 registered merchants.
SEA consumers have access to a plethora of smart ordering, delivery and “loyalty” websites and apps, but in our experience, SEA consumers very rarely receive personalized deals based on their purchases and behavior.
The ZCITY App targets consumer through the provision of personalized deals based on consumers’ purchase history, location and preferences. Our technology platform allows us to identify the spending trends of our customers (the when, where, why, and how much). We are able to offer these personalized deals through the application of our proprietary artificial intelligence (or “AI”) technology that scours the available database to identify and create opportunities to extrapolate the greatest value from the data, analyze consumer behavior and roll out attractive rewards-based campaigns for targeted audiences. We believe this AI technology is currently a unique market differentiator for the ZCITY App.
We operate our ZCITY App on the hashtag: “#RewardsOnRewards”. We believe this branding demonstrates to users the ability to spend ZCITY App-based Reward Points (or “RP”) and “ZCITY Cash Vouchers” with discount benefits at checkout. Additionally, users can earn rewards from selected e-Wallet or other payment methods.
ZCITY App users do not require any on-going credit top-up or need to provide bank card number with their binding obligations. We have partnered with Malaysia’s leading payment gateway, IPAY88, for secure and convenient transactions. Users can use our secure platform and enjoy cashless shopping experiences with rebates when they shop with e-commerce and retail merchants through trusted and leading e-wallet providers such as Touch’n Go eWallet, Boost eWallet, GrabPay eWallet and credit card/online banking like the “FPX” (the Malaysian Financial Process Exchange) as well as more traditional providers such as Visa and Mastercard.
Key Factors that Affect Operating Results
We believe the key factors affecting our financial condition and results of operations include the following:
Our Ability to Create Value for Our Users and Generate Revenue
Our ability to create value for our users and generate our revenues from merchants is driven by the factors described below:
Our Investment in User Base, Technology, People and Infrastructure
We have made, and will continue to make, significant investments in our platform to attract consumers and merchants, enhance user experience and expand the capabilities and scope of our platform. We expect to continue to invest in our research and development team as well as in our technology capabilities and infrastructure, which will lower our margins but deliver overall long-term growth.
Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic