crowdinvestment

Merger Between a P2P Lending Marketplace and an Equity-Based Crowdfunding Platform

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In Germany Kapilendo and Venturate announced they will merge. Kapilendo is a p2p lending marketplace offering loans between 30,000 and 2.5M Euro to SMEs for loan terms of 1 to 5 years. The minimum amount for investors is 100 Euro. Investors are not charged any fees. Kapilendo was launched in 2015 and recently gained some publicity, when it succeeded to fund a 1M Euro, 3 year loan to first division soccer club Hertha BSC in 10 minutes. This loan has an interest rate of 4.5%. So far loans listed at Kapilendo were in the range of 3.1% to 6.5% interest. Kapilendo uses Fidor as transaction bank to originate loans.

Venturate is a small equity-based crowdfunding site, launched in summer 2015.

FinLab, owner of Venturate will also invest an additional amount to foster further growth of Kapilendo. After the transaction FinLab now owns 25.1% of Kapilendo.

Who Owns Top UK Crowdfunding Platforms Crowdcube and Seedrs?

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Thanks to Companies House filings of British Companies are available to the public fee-free now (previously there was a small fee to access documents). This is a huge plus for equity crowdfunding as interested investors can check past filings of the pitching companies (provided the company was not founded very recently).

This also allows anybody interested to check how many shares the founders, employees and investors of the top UK equity crowdfunding platforms Crowdcube and Seedrs hold. And in order to save you the time to search yourself, P2P-Banking.com provides the direct links to the documents below:

Crowdcube

Seedrs

Both companies had pitches in the past for themselves, offering part of their equity on their platforms to interested investors.

Continue reading →

Fundedbyme Gets Equity Crowdfunding License in Malaysia

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fundedbyme-logoSwedish crowdfunding marketplace Fundedbyme today announces that its partner Alix Global Sdn Bhd, was awarded one of six coveted licenses to operate equity crowdfunding in Malaysia. Malaysia is the first South-East Asia country offering equity crowdfunding licenses. The license allows FundedByMe to start operations in the new market.

The announcement follows careful deliberations by the Malaysian Securities Commission, which closed submissions for licenses in May 2015. The license comes under Section 34 of the Capital Markets and Services Act (2007), by the Malaysian Securities Commission. It will permit the selected platforms to help privately owned businesses raise money from a spectrum of investors – including institutional, accredited, and retail investors – with limitations placed on non-accredited investors.

“We’re extremely excited to be one of the few platforms selected by the Malaysian Securities Commission today, which is a first for the region, and marks a historic moment for Malaysia and the crowdfunding industry. As a business-building crowdfunding platform, we together with our partners Alix Global are thrilled to help build this fast-growing industry of which empowers businesses through crowdfunding,” said Daniel Daboczy, CEO and Co-Founder of FundedByMe. Continue reading →

Two UK Crowdfunding Platforms Currently Raising Money From The Crowd at Seedrs – Crowdlords & Trillion Fund

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At the moment there is not only one but two open pitches from UK crowdfunding/fintech startups  raising money in exchange for equity at Seedrs.
I invested small amounts in both of them and will become a shareholder when the pitches successfully close.

Crowdlords

Crowdlords is a pre-launch two-sided, residential buy-to let crowdfunding platform that wants to bring together landlords and investors.

Landlords who are fully vetted, would identify the properties and be required to invest a minimum amount themselves – the balance is sourced from Investors. Each property would be held in a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) with the shareholdings in each SPV split between the Landlord and the Investors.

Investors would be able to select from a range of properties and investments. Investors would gain returns from ongoing underlying rental income and a proportionate share of sale proceeds when the property is sold. Investors could invest fairly modest sums with a minimum investment of 1,000 GBP.

Crowdlords is pitching for 90,000 GBP offering 10% equity (810,000 GBP pre-money valuation). The pitch is currntly 83% filled.

Trillion Fund

Trillion Fund is a crowdfunding platform that raises money for environmental and social projects from ordinary people who want better returns.

Trillion focuses on loan based crowdfunding in green energy and social investment, and earns a percentage of funds raised, paid by borrowers, and an annual percentage of funds lent, paid by the lenders.

Using profit as motivation Trillion aims to re-engage consumers with their money and help them make a profit and make a difference. Trillion effectively operates a two sided network, bringing together people with money and those who need it.

Trillion claims that the recent merger with Buzzbnk has made it one of the largest social crowdfunding business in the UK.

The pitch seeks to raise 500,000 GBP in exchange for 7.7% equity (6M GBP pre-money valuation). The pitch just started and is currently 2.7% filled. Continue reading →

Seedrs Acquires Junction Investments – Will Expand Into US Market

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Seedrs, a UK crowdinvestment platform, has announced that it acquired California based Junction Investments. Seedrs plans to use this acquisition to expand to the United States in early 2015. Junction’s co-founders, Adam Kaufman and Brian Goldsmith, are now Co-Heads of Seedrs America, and they will be leading this expansion.

Seedrs was already open to international investors and startups, but so far the focus was clearly on the UK and Europe.

Seedrs on building a global platform: ‘A founding principle of Seedrs is that investment in startups and growth businesses should be global. We believe in a future where entrepreneurs and investors from all over the world can connect online. Investors should be able to discover and invest in opportunities anywhere, and entrepreneurs should be able to access capital worldwide.

Financial regulation remains largely national or regional, however, and compliance with applicable law has always been a non-negotiable element of Seedrs’s approach to business. Building a global platform is thus a multi-stage process that involves identifying the right approaches and partners in different jurisdictions.

Having opened across Europe at the end of 2013, we began to look at the U.S. market at the beginning of this year. The U.S. has been slower to embrace equity crowdfunding than the UK and Europe have, and full-scale crowdfunding is not yet possible there. But with the opening of online investment to accredited investors at the end of last year (under Title II of the JOBS Act), and the prospect of wider crowdfunding on the horizon (under the yet-to-be-implemented Title III of the JOBS Act, or an amended version thereof), we feel that now is the right time to begin building our U.S. presence.’

My take: This is one of the first international mergers in the equity crowdfunding space. It will be interesting to see if and how other players do on taking internationalisation beyond Europe.

German Crowdfunding Platform Bergfürst is a Bank Now

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German crowdinvestment service Bergfürst announced yesterday that it has been granted a full bank license from German regulator Bafin. This status is not that frequently reached by new companies. In 2013 only 3 new companies were granted full bank licenses.

Bergfürst was launched in 2012 and featured a fully regulated exchange as USP from the start allowing investors to trade equity of funded companies with daily market prices fixed. Effectively Bergfürst allows companies to do a small IPO directly to the crowd. Since launch Bergfürst only did one funding – albeit a huge one – in the end of 2013, Urbanara raised 3 million Euro (about 4M US$). In September 2013 Volksbank Berlin became a shareholder of Bergfürst. Continue reading →