The Italian Crowdinvesting Market Faces Sharp Decline in 2026

The Italian crowdinvesting market is experiencing a difficult period with no signs of recovery on the horizon. Between July 2025 and June 2026, total fundraising stalled at €164.19 million, a 36.8% decline compared to the €259.75 million recorded in the previous 12 months, which had already seen a 14% decline.

This is according to the 11th Italian report on Italian crowdinvesting market, produced by the Politecnico di Milano School of Management ‘s Observatory of the same name and presented today.

Data on Italian crowdinvesting

Crowdinvesting refers to investing, through an authorized crowdfunding platform, in a direct loan or a bond (minibond), or in equity capital shares of a company through an equity-based model. Fundraising volumes, already declining between July 2024 and June 2025, returned to 2020 levels in June 2026, the year of the pandemic. The platforms authorized under the ECSP (European Crowdfunding Service Providers) Regulation dropped to 37 from 42 the previous year, and those actually active, with at least one campaign launched in the last 12 months, are only 30.

Equity crowdfunding is holding up thanks to real estate campaigns, which remained stable in the first half of 2026 with nearly €30 million raised, while other types of operations, including those of innovative startups, hit a low of €8.56 million, less than half the amount raised in the first half of 2025.

Fundraising through minibonds is also failing to take off, remaining at around €2 million per semester, while direct loans issued by lending platforms in the first half of 2026 are at their lowest levels in the last five years for both the real estate (around €28 million) and non-real estate (€5.55 million) portions.

As of June 30th, 2026, 37 portals for online capital raising were authorized in Italy, five fewer than the previous year. Of these, 13 operate in direct lending, 18 in securities placement, and six in both segments; the analysis also includes the EvenFi portal, which obtained ECSP authorization through the Spanish market authority. Among the Italian portals, Doorway, Ener2Crowd, and Walliance have applied to operate in other European markets.

Compared to last year, Italfund has been added to the register, while BuildBull, Backtowork (acquired by Opstart ), Rendimento Etico, Innexta, Ecomill, and Tifosy have been removed. Recrowd and Bridge Asset have been suspended, respectively since July 2025 and last June, by measures from the Bank of Italy and Consob.

Recent developments in Italian crowdfunding sector include the merger of the CrowdFundMe and Wearestarting portals with the Smart4Tech company, which have now merged into the Entera group, while the RE-Lender platform has been liquidated with the migration of projects to EvenFi. At European level, the overall number of operators remains stable at 237, with France still in the lead (57 authorisations), followed by Italy (37) and Spain (27).

Equity, lending, and real estate crowdfunding

In 2025, 145 equity campaigns were successfully closed, in line with 2024, but the first half of 2026 saw only 53 successful campaigns compared to 67 in the same period of the previous year. Since 2014, the Observatory has counted 1,712 closed campaigns, of which 82.5% were successful; among the most active Italian crowdinvesting platforms in the last 12 months were Opstart, Mamacrowd, and CrowdFundMe, which together originated 60.5% of the deals.

Total equity raised through Italian crowdinvesting platforms since the industry’s inception amounts to €877.22 million, with Mamacrowd leading the historical ranking and in the last 12 months, followed by UpsideTown and Yeldo Crowd.

Regarding issuing companies: between July 2025 and June 2026, 104 were registered (some with multiple active operations during the year), of which 30 innovative startups (29% of the total, the same as a year ago), 11 innovative SMEs (10%, down), 53 SMEs (51%, the highest value ever recorded) and 10 investment vehicles (10%, down sharply).

There were only 86 new entries: among them, Lombardy continues to be the most represented region (36, equal to 41.9%) followed by Lazio (16), Emilia Romagna (13) and Tuscany (6). In as many as 9 regions, especially in Southern and Central Italy, none were registered.

On the lending front, cumulative funding for businesses in Italy amounted to €717.93 million. 2025 closed with €106.16 million raised, a 34% decrease compared to 2024, and the first half of 2026 saw a further halving compared to the same period of the previous year, penalized primarily by the suspension of Recrowd, which nevertheless remains the historic leader in terms of capital raised, followed by Trusters (now part of the Entera group) and the no longer active Rendimento Etico platform.

Over the past year, the Italian crowdinvesting platforms that have exceeded the €10 million threshold are Trusters, Walliance, and Leone Investments, while default rates on transactions in 2024 and 2025 show a wide dispersion, between 0.65% and 37.65%, aggravated by inflation in construction costs and several judicial investigations into building permits issued by municipal administrations.

Regarding real estate crowdfunding, after a negative second half of 2025, the first half of 2026 held firm with 29.39 million euros raised through equity and 28.04 million through lending, the latter figure being the lowest since the second half of 2021 and for the first time surpassed by the equity component, with a confirmed trend towards higher expected returns and maturities.

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(Featured image by Chiara Daneluzzi via Unsplash)

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