INVESTORS · BOOTSTRAPPED · NOT RAISING
Bootstrapped. Not raising. Reading every email anyway.
This is the page we send to investors who reach out cold. Saves them an email, saves us the read. The short version: ONSET is wholly owned by Marketing Lancers Consultancy Sdn Bhd (SSM 1460628-X), we pay ourselves from revenue, and we have no plans to take outside capital.
The longer version is below — including the questions we'd get in a pitch and what would change our minds.
CURRENT STATUS
Bootstrapped, profitable, not raising.
Marketing Lancers has been profitable since 2014. ONSET launched on the same balance sheet in 2025 and has been on it since. We are not in active fundraising discussions, and we're not running a process. If you're an analyst building a market map, the team will likely answer your questions; if you're a fund pitching a term sheet, this page is the answer.
WHY NOT RAISE
Three reasons, in order of weight.
- 1
The market pays for the product
SE Asian SMEs spend cash on receptionists, voice agents, e-Invoice software, and collections services every month. We can build the AI version of those, charge a fair price in RM, and grow on cash flow. No need to subsidise.
- 2
Venture incentives don't match the product
A “10× in five years” clock pushes toward the US market, growth-at-all-costs, and a product an SME owner can't actually understand. We'd rather build something Reginald's neighbour at BNI wants to buy than something a Sand Hill partner wants to fund.
- 3
Concentration of ownership in the operators
The team building ONSET is the team that'll be on call when LHDN's sandbox falls over at 3am. Equity should reward them, not a stack of investors who can't debug an n8n workflow.
INVESTOR-STYLE QUESTIONS · 5
We're not running a process. We'll answer anyway.
These come up enough we may as well answer them in public.
- Who's the customer?
- SE Asian SMEs — mostly Malaysian, growing Singaporean tail. 5-100 staff. Owners who answer their own WhatsApp. Industries: property, F&B, hospitality, professional services, clinics, retail.
- What's the unit economics?
- Module ARPU lands between RM 149 and RM 1,499/month, depending on bundle. Hard-enforced 60% gross margin floor on every proposal. Two of every five customers buy a second module within 90 days.
- Why now in Malaysia?
- LHDN MyInvois Phase 4 began 1 January 2027 with a penalty-free extension; full enforcement hits 1 January 2028. Every Malaysian business above the RM 25k revenue threshold needs e-Invoice integration before then. We're an LHDN-listed ASP, which means we're one of the few software stacks they can buy on day one.
- What's the moat?
- Three: (1) every module speaks BM, English, Mandarin and Manglish natively, not via translation; (2) PDPA, LHDN, HRDF, BNM, MyInvois are first-class concerns, not afterthoughts; (3) a 30-second Telegram cancel window before any outbound action — humans decide, machines execute.
- What would change your mind on raising?
- A regulated enterprise wanting sovereign on-prem at scale, where the up-front infra cost is genuinely capital-intensive. Until then, no.
WHAT YOU CAN DO INSTEAD OF INVESTING
Five concrete alternatives.
Become a customer
The fastest, cleanest support a young company can get.
Refer a Malaysian SME
We run a real, public referral program.
Become an agency partner
We white-label for consultancies.
Join the team
Open roles. Engineers especially.
Send a sharp critique
We read everything that reaches reginald@onset.my. Bonus points if you signed up first.
FOR ACQUIRERS & STRATEGIC PARTNERS
One founder, one inbox.
If you represent an enterprise looking at strategic partnership, white-label, or acquisition, write to Reginald directly at reginald@onset.my with subject line PARTNERSHIP. We respond inside one business day. We will not engage through brokers or third-party reps.
PAGE LAST REVIEWED · 05 June 2026 · REGINALD CHAN