[UPDATED] GE15: Invoke shares will be sold to public one day, says Rafizi

KUALA LUMPUR – RM11 million of the nearly RM17 million worth of shares Rafizi Ramli holds in his data analytics company Invoke Solutions Sdn Bhd is from investors and will one day be sold to the public, the PKR deputy president said today.

Answering rival politicians who have questioned his assets and Invoke’s status as a not-for-profit company, Rafizi said these investments were made from 2019 to 2022.

“Why did local and international investors buy Invoke shares? Because the potential for Invoke to be listed on the stock market in the future allows them to earn huge returns when Invoke shares start being sold to the public,” he said in a video on his Facebook page today.

He also said it was “standard around the world” for a tech start-up to be valued by between seven to 10 times its yearly earnings based on its future potential.

But for the purposes of his asset declaration as an election candidate in the coming general election (GE15), Rafizi said he had used the “outdated” method of nett asset value, based on which his shareholding of more than 70% in the company was worth RM17 million.

Rafizi has been under fire from Bersatu supreme council member Datuk Abdul Latiff Ahmad since the PKR politician declared his assets last week as part of moves to get all PKR candidates in GE15 to do the same.

Latiff, who had been on the receiving end of some of Rafizi’s exposés on the littoral combat ship scandal recently, has been questioning the latter on his Invoke shares and their value.

Latiff had also urged Rafizi to explain Invoke’s spike in value, considering it was RM4.7 million in the red as of last December.

He had also called on Rafizi to explain why the firm had only 14 shareholders, including Rafizi himself, who is the majority shareholder.

Rafizi today said that Invoke, which does data analytics work – including for PKR – on voter sentiments and possible election outcomes, was a high-value company because of its technological capabilities and strong revenue growth.

“Many don’t understand that the value of tech start-ups at the beginning does not depend on profit and loss, but on the value of its technology and its scalability.”

He said Invoke’s earnings for 2021 had been RM6.3 million and were expected to exceed RM11 million for 2022, which translated the company’s value to between RM60 million and RM120 million.

“This is an official valuation by Cradle Fund (Sdn Bhd), a government agency monitoring tech start-ups,” he said, adding that all of Invoke’s financial information was verifiable.

He also shared the company’s profits in recent years, which were RM507,000 for 2020, RM653,000 for 2021, and expected to be RM1.5 million for 2022. The company’s cash position is also sufficient for up to two more years without having to issue shares, Rafizi added.

Additionally, Invoke had two subsidiary companies which developed tech platforms, and while these were not yet profitable, the group’s overall losses were shrinking each year.

He also said all of the RM2.5 million he invested as start-up capital in Invoke came from his personal Tabung Haji and Amanah Saham Bumiputera accounts when he was younger. The sum was also invested in the company “gradually” since 2016, as he never had such an amount in cash, he added.

Slamming rivals who took issue with his asset declaration, Rafizi said the debate on his Invoke shareholding had shown his critics’ hypocrisy with regard to showing young Malaysians how to create value and wealth themselves.

“Through Invoke, I want to show Malaysian youths that they can build a high-value business in the digital economy,” Rafizi said. – The Vibes, November 8, 2022