Malaysia launch thesis
Charge Me starts as a powerbank utility and scales into offline distribution, payments, and media infrastructure.
We are launching in Malaysia with a 50-location pilot across the highest-value bars, nightlife venues, and casual dining clusters. The short-term business is simple: rent powerbanks where battery anxiety is constant. The long-term asset is much larger: a dense offline consumer network.
Investment thesis
This is a wedge into real-world consumer infrastructure, not a gadget business.
The now
Battery anxiety is frequent, urgent, and monetizable. Bars, nightlife clusters, and casual dining venues create repeat demand, long dwell times, and highly visible station placement.
The hidden asset
Each station is a physical touchpoint, payment surface, traffic router, and data node. Density compounds. That is why the endgame is much larger than renting portable batteries.
Open market
Malaysia still offers room to define the category early and lock in the best venue inventory first.
Fixed-rent control
We buy station placement with fixed venue rent and keep the full upside of usage, penalties, and future monetization layers.
Fast proof cycle
A 50-location pilot is enough to identify top clusters, real load, repeat behavior, and whether to accelerate toward 200-300 sites.
Pilot structure
The pilot is designed for speed, signal quality, and clean expansion logic.
Tier 1: 20 locations
Top bars and nightlife in Bangsar, TREC, and Mont Kiara. Highest traffic, highest urgency, highest station utilization.
Tier 2: 25 locations
Pubs and casual dining across PJ, TTDI, and Damansara. Core cash engine of the pilot.
Tier 3: 5 locations
Lower-confidence placements for testing assumptions, pricing, and neighborhood variability.
Pilot objective
Not just profit. We use the first 50 sites to discover density, repeat usage, and the map for the next 200-300 locations.
Pilot economics
The entry budget is small, the feedback loop is fast, and the upside is asymmetric.
Budget to launch 50 locations
- Hardware$21,000
- Venue rent, 3 months buffer$13,200
- Installation$1,250
- Payments / MVP$2,000-$4,000
- Total$37,000-$40,000
Monthly venue rent
- Tier 1: RM 600 x 20RM 12,000
- Tier 2: RM 300 x 25RM 7,500
- Tier 3: RM 150 x 5RM 750
- TotalRM 20,250
Monthly revenue potential
- Tier 1$17,000
- Tier 2$13,750
- Tier 3$1,000
- Gross$31,000 / month
Ramp and payback
- Initial realistic net$12k-$18k / month
- Full-load net target$26k / month
- Estimated payback1.5-2 months
- These numbers are operating assumptions for the pilot model and should be validated in market during the first 60 days.
Long-term vision
The real company is a dense offline layer for commerce, media, and payments.
The mistake is to think this is a hardware business. The correct frame is distribution plus payments plus data. Powerbank rental is the wedge. Network density is the moat. Once stations become a repeated part of consumer movement, Charge Me can monetize more than charging.
A
Rental + penalties
Immediate utility, daily usage, and base monetization.
B
Ads + offers
Screen inventory, QR campaigns, branded powerbanks, venue promos.
C
Traffic redirection
“Charge here, get a drink there.” CPL and CPA for partner venues.
D
Data + fintech
Location intelligence, wallet layers, loyalty, cashback, BNPL.
Advertising layer
Screen inventory and QR campaigns can add a second revenue layer per station once network density is established.
Bar SaaS and promotions
Offers, retention tools, local promotions, and analytics become sellable once Charge Me owns venue surface area.
Expansion platform
Over time the network can extend into other charging and physical utility services, not only mobile devices.
Founding team
Operators across hardware, company building, and financial architecture.
Evgeny Talagaev
Hardware and physical operations
Owns the real-world product side: devices, charging systems, installation, and physical rollout execution.
Alexey Kostarev
Founder, growth, and venture building
Drives market entry, partnerships, rollout logic, and the broader company-building strategy behind the network.
Borya
Finance and payment strategy
Shapes unit economics, funding logic, and the eventual bridge from charging utility into transaction products.
The ask
Fund the first 50 locations. If the pilot validates density, the next move is aggressive scale.
The first check is not funding a gadget. It is funding market entry into a repeat-use offline network with compounding monetization layers. Charge Me starts with a $40k pilot and is built to earn the right to become much larger.
founders@chargeme.my