Bolsa Social Evolves from a Crowdfunding Platform to Impact Investment Ecosystem

Bolsa Social, created in 2015 as the first Spanish participatory investment platform authorized by the CNMV, has decided to take a step forward in its business strategy.

The company will continue to focus on promoting projects with social and environmental impact, from an investment ecosystem, creating new instruments and opportunities available to different profiles of investors who, in addition to an economic return, seek to generate a positive impact on society and the environment. planet.

2024 represents a turning point in the company’s trajectory, which already began at the end of last year with the appointment of Fernando Summers as the new CEO and with an investment round of 700,000 euros to expand into the Portuguese market and thus begin its internationalization.

With the creation of this impact investment ecosystem, which is reflected in its new corporate website, Bolsa Social plans to close this year with an invested volume of 8 million euros, which represents an increase of 300% compared to the 2 million 2023. In this way, the impact generated in this first year will be equivalent to that achieved in five years in the previous stage.

“The idea is to grow both in number and size of the rounds channeled through our investment ecosystem, reaching amounts of between 1 and 2 million euros, both for equity and lending. This means increasing the capital raised to finance the projects, for which we will have different investment instruments. Bolsa Social was born with the mission of democratizing impact investing, and now we want to continue doing so through more channels, and increase knowledge about impact investing in Spanish society,” explained Fernando Summers, CEO of Bolsa Social.

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Four investment instruments

Currently, the company has four investment instruments. On the one hand, the traditional crowdfunding platform, which allows you to invest from a minimum amount of 50 euros. It began oriented towards investment in capital (equity), but in 2021 the alternative of sustainable loans (lending) was added to help companies in a more advanced stage than equity ones to continue promoting their project. This instrument has a lower risk than capital investment and allows you to obtain returns of up to 8%.

The lending category is now complemented by a private impact debt investment club that, with a minimum amount of 5,000 euros, allows preferential access to the deal flow of Bolsa Social.

The third tool in their ecosystem is the Impact Network , a private network for more experienced investors. They have priority access to capital investment opportunities, access to reports and detailed reporting in financial terms and the impact of their investees, in addition to active participation in the selection of the projects to be financed. These investors become involved in the financed companies, contributing their knowledge to help them grow and generate greater impact. In each operation in which they decide to invest, the minimum ticket must be 3,000 euros.

Finally, one step further is the Impact Angels Club (CIA), which includes professionals from the world of venture capital and investors who are committed to innovation to move towards a more sustainable and fairer economy. Its mission is to universalize impact investment among business angels, providing them with powerful dealflow and quality project analysis. This vehicle is currently closed (no more members accepted). To belong to the club it is necessary to make a contribution of 25,000 euros.

“We are also working to offer institutional investors the possibility of channeling funds towards our impact projects or making ad hoc calls for those types of projects that interest them most, something that no other platform in our country does. We already have agreements with some partners in this regard. Having different actors will allow us to increase the size of the average ticket to help with larger financing and provide different advantages to the projects we finance: crowdfunding provides notoriety and visibility, business angels, smart money with patronage and advice from successful entrepreneurs , and institutional investments, access to a potential B2B market,” explained Fernando Summers.

And all this, without leaving aside crowdfunding because, true to its essence, Bolsa Social wants to continue offering anyone, without needing to be a professional investor, the opportunity to invest, explaining the risks and facilitating the understanding of the opportunities. , both on a financial and impact level. In fact, their approach is that in all funded projects there is a minimum crowdfunding component, although members of the Impact Network or the CIA have priority access to the round.

Balance and impact 2023

Since its creation in 2015, Bolsa Social has closed 46 crowdfunding rounds with a total invested capital of 13.1 million euros, with an average ticket of between 3,000 and 4,000 euros, and has built a community of investors made up of 11,550 members.

Regarding the social and environmental impact generated by the funded projects, the companies in its portfolio have created more than 150 jobs, have avoided the consumption of 81,000 tons of water and the emissions of 55,000 tons of CO2, and have improved life of more than 140,000 people through inclusion and international cooperation actions.

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(Featured image by geralt via Pixabay)

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First published in Funds Society. A third-party contributor translated and adapted the article from the original. In case of discrepancy, the original will prevail.

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