Crowdfunding: 2023 Closes Quietly, with a Drop in Activity on the Equity Front

2023 ended quietly for Italian crowdfunding platforms , with a clear decline in activity on the equity collection front for startups and SMEs, with equity collection holding up on the real estate front and conversely with an acceleration on the real estate front estate lending, although concentrated on a single platform.

All this in conjunction with the epochal change in the reference legislation which kept sector professionals busy in the second part of the year to comply with the new European standards and obtain the green light for the activity.

This operation, which so far has only been achieved by 17 platforms, which have obtained authorization to operate in Europe, based on the new European Regulation on crowdfunding, which came into force on last November 10th . The latest in chronological order were OpStart , Demetra Lending and 2meet2biz (Migliora srl) .

Really interesting possibilities are now opening up for these platforms, because they can also offer their campaigns to non-Italian retail investors. But they must be able to seize them, because the same opportunities also open up for authorized European platforms which can now come and collect from Italian retail investors. All on both the equity and debt fronts.

On the fundraising front for startups and SMEs , preliminary data from CrowdfundingBuzz highlights, as mentioned, a clear decline in activity: in total only €57.7 million were raised spread over 131 campaigns, compared to €72.2 million and 141 campaigns of 2022 and compared to the €90.1 million and 170 campaigns of 2021.

That said, the last quarter of the year marked a recovery, with as many as €22.9 million collected in 41 campaigns. Over half of the collection was concentrated on the Mamacrowd platform , with €32.2 million (in line with the €31.1 million of 2022), followed by CrowdFundMe (€9.7 million, down from 22.5 million in the year before) and by OpStart (€5.2 million from €7 million in 2022).

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The collection of equity real estate crowdfunding platforms

Preliminary data from CrowdfundingBuzz, on the other hand, indicate a stable overall collection in 2023 for real estate equity crowdfunding platforms of €53.1 million (from €55 million in 2022) and strong growth for real estate lending crowdfunding platforms, reaching €135, 5 million (from €91.7 million).

At the top of the equity ranking are Walliance (€17.7 million, almost half of the €32.8 million of 2022), Concrete (€13.1 million, down from €18.2 million the year before) and Mamacrowd (€8.9 million, a clear increase from the single million euros raised in 2022). While at the top of the ranking of lending platforms are Recrowd (€68.3 million, more than double the €32.2 million in 2022), Yield Ethical (€19.2 million, down from €24.4 million the year before) and Trusters (€16 million, in line with €15.3 million in 2022).

The collection of real estate lending platforms

Returning to the latest authorized platforms, Opstart is among the main Italian crowdinvesting platforms. On the equity front, since the start of activity in 2016, according to CrowdfundingBuzz , it has in fact raised over €67 million by financing 158 projects and since 2022 it has also started activity on the debt crowdfunding front, placing minibonds in the appropriate section of the portal.

In November 2019, OpStart had received a round of financing signed by Aleph Finance Group Plc , an investment holding company that owns Pairstech Capital Management, which until then owned 4.527% of the capital, while the shares the main ones were in the hands of Giovanpaolo Airoldi (21.29%), Diego Zanchi, Andrea Cantù and Alessandro Airoldi (with 17.33% each) and PMI Top srl (6.42%).

The latter is a private capital investment holding that is financed with equity crowdfunding campaigns, launched in February 2020 by Davide Cigolini and Alessandro Tesio , who own minority shares of the capital, and participated by Directa Sim and by Alessandro and Giovanpaolo themselves Arioldi and Diego Zanchi.

Then, in March 2022, Banca Valsabbina signed the agreement for the acquisition of 9% of the capital of Opstart, which was followed last April 2023 by a further investment in a capital increase by of Warrant Hub (Tinexta Group) , leader in strategic and financial consultancy for innovation, digital transformation and sustainable business development, which in turn acquired a 9.1% share of Opstart.

Based in Grassobbio (Bergamo), Demetra Lending is the first real estate lending crowdfunding platform dedicated to impact investing . The benefit company was founded in autumn 2021 by Bruno Vittorio Maino, Enrico Ventresca and Fabio Manni, supported by a team of professionals from the world of real estate, finance, and ICT. The platform was supported for the authorization process by lawyers from Avvocati.net. According to CrowdfundingBuzz , the platform, since its launch at the end of 2022 to date, has successfully launched and closed two campaigns for a total of 105 thousand euros raised.

As for 2meet2biz, it is an equity and debt crowdfunding platform that was the first to use blockchain technology to manage all internal document processes, thanks to its presence, as a validator node, on the Commercio.network blockchain. The platform, which raised 450 thousand euros in 2023 on the equity front in a single campaign, is owned by Miglior srl, in turn founded by Serena Auletta and Mario Basilico . GIM Legal assisted Miglior in the authorization process.

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(Featured image by kschneider2991 via Pixabay)

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

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