Enerfip review
7.5
(our review)
Enerfip is a French crowdfunding platform that focuses entirely on sustainable energy. We rate the platform with a 7.5. The platform works well and has a good range of projects. Interest rates are good, although many projects offer no guarantees. Be sure to consider the risks of each project carefully before investing.
Please note: investing via crowdfunding involves risks. You may lose (part of) your money.
Content:
What is Enerfip?
Enerfip is a French crowdfunding platform that was founded in 2014. It is based in Montpellier. It is entirely focused on financing sustainable energy projects, like solar and wind farms. Since its inception, Enerfip has financed more than 500 projects, with a total amount of over 600 million euros.
The platform targets private and professional investors. Most campaigns originate in France, but Enerfip is also expanding into other countries. It has also launched international versions of its website, in 2023 for example, it launched a Dutch website to reach more investors in the Netherlands.
Invest via Mintos, Europe’s P2P leader with 11.62% average return, or EstateGuru for property-secured real estate loans across Europe. Investing involves risks. You can lose your investment.
How does it work?
To get started, you will need to create a free account. Getting registered on Enerfip is a quick process. The account is created with your email address, after that you will need to fill in some personal details. You also need to upload a copy of your ID. You can also create a business account, or even invest for your children. In our test, we only made a private account.
While registering, the platform immediately connects you to a service agent. In our case, we spoke to Jill, with whom we had already had a video meeting. This means that you do not have to talk to an AI agent, but to an actual employee of the company.
You can even open an investing account for your children.
Ease of use
Enerfip’s platform is pretty clear, it is easy to navigate. For each campaign, you can immediately see how much has already been funded, what the interest rate is and how long your money will be tied up. For investors who like to dig a little deeper, there are all kinds of appendices with additional technical and financial information. However, you can often already make an informed decision based on the basic information alone.
In the dashboard, it is easy to track your investments. You can also download documents like the loan agreement and the information memorandum from the Enerfip website. Emails about upcoming campaigns are clear and usually available in multiple languages.
Investing in campaigns
It took a few days until our account was approved, but you do not need to wait for this to start investing. Immediately after registration, you can indicate in which campaigns you want to invest. If your account has not yet been approved, you are making reservations for your investments, so to speak. Investing is possible from 10 euros per campaign. To invest, you will need to select campaigns yourself.
Once your account has been approved, you can transfer money to it. If you use a credit card, the money will be credited to your account immediately. If you make a manual transfer, it will take three days.
Invest via Mintos, Europe’s P2P leader with 11.62% average return, or EstateGuru for property-secured real estate loans across Europe. Investing involves risks. You can lose your investment.
Product offer
Enerfip adds several new campaigns to its platform every month. It focuses on sustainable energy. Most campaigns are based in France, but some also originate from Spain, Portugal and Germany. Most campaigns are solar parks, wind farms or energy storage systems.
The volume of campaigns seems good. We have only been active for a short time, but at the time of writing, there were always campaigns available. Immediately after registration, we were able to invest in projects that were already open. New campaigns are announced by email.
Like most platforms, it first applies a waiting period, allowing you to review the campaign in advance. We initially thought experienced investors would get earlier access, but the platform informed us that everyone gets access at the same time. Less experienced investors, however, have four days to cancel an investment (even if they have already paid). Experienced investors do not have this option.
Experienced investors have a shorter waiting period.
Choosing a campaign
At Enerfip, you need to choose each campaign that you want to invest in. The platform does not have an Auto-Invest option like other peer-to-peer platforms, like Mintos. It sends an email when new campaigns become available. On the project page, you can indicate your interest via the ‘alert’ button, after which it adds you to a waiting list.
The platform has its own system to give out credit scores to campaigns. It takes into account the financial situation of the company, and it considers its management team. It also indicates the phase that a campaign is in, how much energy it generates and who is developing it. Campaigns from profitable companies seeking refinancing often receive good scores, while other campaigns involve more risk.
Secondary market
Enerfip offers a secondary market (Enerdeal), where you can resell ongoing loans to other investors. This is only possible for campaigns that were financed more than six months ago and still have at least two months remaining.
Returns and fees
During the period that we have been active on the platform, the gross interest rate has usually been between 8 and 9 percent per year. Enerfip does not charge investors any direct fees. You do not pay any registration fees or transaction costs, not even for the secondary market. Payments of the borrowers are the only thing that influences your returns.
Other large crowdfunding platforms with comparable interest rates sometimes offer mortgage security. With Enerfip, the collateral is less clear. Sometimes, for example, a parent company acts as guarantor, but we had no idea how much security that provides. If the project disappoints or the company goes bankrupt, you may lose your investment.
In addition to projects where the installations have already been built and are already supplying power, there are also projects that are still in the licensing phase. The risks are sometimes greater, especially for projects involving new construction and/or expansion. Enerfip assesses the projects and provides extensive information, but does not itself give investment advice.
Reliability
Enerfip has held an ECSP license since 2022. This means that the platform complies with European rules for crowdfunding via the French regulator AMF/ACPR. On Trustpilot, Enerfip scores 4.7 out of five stars based on approximately 500 reviews. The only complaints we found were related to the assessment of the initial deposit.
Risks of loans
Enerfip mainly issues bullet loans: during the term you only receive interest, and the principal is repaid at the end. Without strong collateral, a single default can have a major impact on your portfolio. The platform sometimes offers multiple bond rounds for the same company.
Enerfip has a strong track record, with a default rate of only 0.13 percent since its inception. The positive Trustpilot scores confirm our thoughts about it’s strong selection. Partly in view of the volume it has already achieved, we consider Enerfip to be one of the most reliable crowdfunding platforms in Europe.
Our rating: 7.5
In our latest review, Enerfip scores a 7.5. It is a reliable and user-friendly platform for investing in sustainable energy. The range of options is quite large, it provides a lot of information, and it does not charge investors any fees. With interest rates comparable to other large crowdfunding platforms, it is possible to earn a good return here.
We like the user-friendliness of the platform. We have only been active on it for a short time, so our experience is still limited, but the track record gives us confidence in the way the platform assesses projects itself. The volume also seems good.
The screening seems to be in order, the borrowers are (mostly) financially sound, but because it often works with subordinated bullet loans, a default does have a significant impact on your portfolio return. As a result, we estimate the risks at Enerfip to be somewhat higher than on other platforms.
If you know how to carefully select campaigns, you can achieve an attractive return here.
