Investing

So far, 43 European crowdfunding platforms have been approved for the new European Crowdfunding Service Provider license. There is a large portion of platforms on the list coming from the Netherlands (12 of them).

Equity crowdfunding platform Crowdcube has joined RetailBook, a new retail investment platform. Crowdcube users can now participate in IPOs on the same terms as institutional investors.

After being founded in 2014, Estonian real estate investment platform Estateguru has financed 719.1 million euros worth of loans. However, it has also announced that it has 450 outstanding defaulted loans, worth 125 million euros.

Estonian real estate investment platform Reinvest24 has announced a strategic partnership with Shojin Property Partners. Shojin Property Partners is an FCA regulated investment company from the United Kingdom. Through the partnership, Reinvest24 can now enter the real estate market in the United Kingdom.

European crowdfunding platform October has facilitated one billion euros of funding. The platform focuses on provides funding to SMEs in Europe. Together, the companies that have received funds from the platform, generate a turnover of 25 billion euros and employ more than 90,000 people.

European lending platform Bondora has increased the monthly investment limit on its auto-invest product called Go & Grow. Existing investors can now invest up to 700 euros automatically per month.

European investment platform Nibble is launching a new product: Legal Strategy. This gives private investors the opportunity to invest in debts. According to the platform, it offers a minimum guaranteed annual interest rate of 8 percent.

In 2022 over 1 billion euros was raised via crowdfunding platforms in the Netherlands. That is a 48 percent increase compared to the year before. The amount was put towards more than 18,000 projects, mostly business loans.

The French government wants to triple the amount of business angels in the country. Officials want to adopt two UK programs, the EIS and SEIS, which provide early-stage tax incentives. As a result, the government hopes that business angels will invest 3 billion euros annually into startups, creating 200,000 jobs by 2027.

Equity crowfunding platform Crowdcube and Octopus Investments are partnering up. Together, they have created a solution that lowers the minimum level of an investment into Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs) to 500 euros. This means that more retail investors will have access to investing in these companies.