HeavyFinance secures portfolio guarantee of 10.5 million euros

Lithuanian agricultural investment platform HeavyFinance has entered into a partnership with the European Investment Fund (EIF). With this partnership, the platform has secured a portfolio guarantee of 10.5 million euros. This will help make funding more readily available to SME farms.

HeavyFinance is a peer-to-peer lending platform. Users can invest in agricultural loans, with a minimum investment amount of 100 euros. The platform focuses on SME farms that are implementing sustainable farming methods.

Earlier this year, the platform raised 50 million euros in funding. The capital injection was used for a private credit fund, to advance agricultural decarbonization in Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Portugal. Now, the company is partnering up with the EIF.

Better terms

The partnership is said to provide farmers and agricultural SMEs with financial resources. With the portfolio guarantee, risks are mitigated. Thanks to that, HeavyFinance can offer debt financing on better terms to agricultural businesses. The guarantee will focus on businesses in Poland and Lithuania.

‘Boosting alternative financing channels is very important for European businesses’

“We are very glad to be teaming up with Heavy Finance again, in order to make financing more readily available for Polish agricultural businesses”, said EIF Chief Executive Marjut Falkstedt. “Boosting alternative financing channels is very important in a difficult period for European businesses, and even more so for vulnerable segments of the economy like smaller businesses that are seeking to transition to a more sustainable footing.”

‘Access to capital needs to be increased’

“Agriculture plays a critical role in climate change mitigation because of the soil’s ability to act as a carbon sink, storing carbon in organic forms for long periods. To speed up the fight against climate change, we need to increase access to capital to small and medium-sized farm owners who own the majority of agricultural land in Europe”, said Laimonas Noreika, CEO and founder of HeavyFinance: “First of its kind EIF portfolio guarantee marks a crucial step in funding the farmers who fight climate change.”