Now, thanks to the RM5 million pre-series A funding MadCash raised from Singaporean and Malaysian investors in 2023, the fintech company is striding closer to its goal of reaching one million women.

“I would love to see MadCash make a difference in as many women’s lives as possible,” Nuraizah says. “I have met such amazing women on this journey so far and have seen how these ladies bring impact to other people in their lives after joining our programme.

“I’ve found that it’s always a two-way street. You look at a person and think they have such a tough life. And yet they are happy. They end up teaching you so many things as well, things you maybe don’t see or appreciate in your own life. Then you start realising there’s more to life than just having a good car, a good house, and all that stuff.”

Having lost her father when she was just nine years old, Nuraizah herself grew up in a modest household. At her first job at McDonald’s, she earned just RM1.80 an hour and was faced with the gruelling reality that many struggling working people still experience today. “When I received a scholarship to go to college, I told myself I would never go back to just RM1.80 an hour,” Nuraizah says. “Every time I came back from college, I would get a job to remind myself that this is how people live.

“Later, I worked in Isetan (a job that paid RM500 a month), and I met people who worked so hard but had never eaten chicken before in their lives,” she added, resolving to use her engineering background and problem-solving skills to found a business that would generate sustainable social impact in the lives of female entrepreneurs and founders–a group that she feels has been under-funded historically.

She tells Tatler more about how MadCash addresses these gaps below.  

See more: 7 Asian Women in Femtech to Watch

How does MadCash vet female-led businesses and track their growth on the platform?

In the application process, we profile entrepreneurs based on the data they provide us and we check things like socio-economic data, business figures and financial obligations. From there we filter out who to give funds to. A key criteria here is what a founder dreams to be and whether or not we can help her build the confidence to achieve that dream. The technology helps us track the impact of their business. We used to track only business growth, but now we’ve started tracking things like recipients’ happiness index and their personal development–whether they have learned something new. It’s not just about the numbers, because we found that for women especially, there are many other areas that add value to their lives and contribute to business growth. 

You just launched the MadCash mobile app. How will this app further add value to female business owners?

With the mobile app, what we want to be able manage repayments and help users to track sales and costs, tracking how much money comes in and goes out. One reason they cannot get a bank loan is because they can’t show to the bank that actual income is coming in. With the mobile app, they record the cash coming in, what goes out, and be the end of six months they have bookkeeping data. They then have proof that they are building a business that earns revenue, and they can then apply for bank loans.

Another thing they can do with the app is track their own time. One of the things that entrepreneurs never do is count themselves as working in their own business. They only put in the cost of employing someone but they don’t necessarily count the value of their own time spent on the business.

What are some positive changes that you want to see in women’s contribution to the workforce?

Women have different priorities over time. Maybe in university, they want to get a good job and earn a good salary. When they get married, their priority might be to start a family. Many stop working and raise their own kids. Once their child reaches a certain age they might find themselves in a better position to become an entrepreneur. So, you see statistics saying that women left the workforce and never came back. They left corporate life, but they didn’t leave working life. They’re not sitting at home, watching TV or gossiping with neighbours. The narrative needs to change in how the government sees this. They’re always talking about how many women left the workforce, but they don’t talk about how many women became entrepreneurs, built a business and started employing people.” 

NOW READ

Beyond The Billion’s Sarah Chen-Spellings on why female-led businesses are worth the investment

8 Female-Led Startups Making The World A Better Place

How Burgreens and Green Rebel’s Helga Angelina Tjahjadi turned a pandemic crisis into a business