Opstart Buys Majority Stake in BackToWork

After the acquisition of Trusters by CrowdFundMe at the end of 2022, another operation highlights the ongoing consolidation of the Italian crowdinvesting market.

Opstart, an Italian equity and lending crowdfunding platform recently authorized under the new EU Regulation, has announced the acquisition of control of BackToWork, an Italian equity crowdfunding portal founded in 2012 and participated by Intesa Sanpaolo, with the bank which will therefore enter the capital of Opstart.

Read more about the acquisition of BackToWork by Opstart, and find the latest financial news of the day with our companion app Born2Invest.

The operation would lead Opstart to acquire 60% of the capital of BacktoWork.

The operation represents the first case of aggregation between large Italian portals, following the entry into force, on 10 November 2023, of the European Regulation on crowdfunding.

An operation that will give life to a platform with a combined total of around 60 thousand users, more than 600 campaigns launched between equity and lending crowdfunding, minibonds and club deals and 157 million euros of capital raised.

Regarding the operation with BacktoWork Giovanpaolo Arioldi, CEO of Opstart, commented: “ This operation will allow us to form a common front in the face of the opening and consequent expansion of the national market, with the introduction of new challenges and competitors. The operation will expand the shareholding structure, currently made up of private and institutional investors such as Banca Valsabbina and Warrant Hub, also to Intesa San Paolo “.

Opstart

Active since 2016, according to the CrowdfundingBuzz observatory, Opstart has raised over 67 million euros by the end of 2023 by financing 158 equity crowdfunding projects. In the last three years the platform has also expanded its activity to minibonds, with the Crowdbond section, to direct lending, with the Crowdlender section, and to real estate, with the CrowdRe section.

About a year ago, Warrant Hub (part of Tinexta Group and 12% owned by Intesa Sanpaolo since November 2022) entered the capital of Opstart, with a 9.1% stake, in a capital increase.

The operation followed a similar one conducted by Banca Valsabbina which in March 2022 had signed the agreement for the acquisition of 9% of the capital of Opstart, with the bank which after the entry of Warrant Hub had diluted to the current 8.21%.

Backtowork

From 2016 to the end of 2023, BacktoWork raised 38.4 million euros in 139 equity crowdfunding campaigns, according to data from the CrowdfundingBuzz observatory.

However, a third is represented by the two individual campaigns in which Intesa Sanpaolo Private Banking customers participated, namely that of Fin-Novia and that of WeRoad,

Fin-Novia was an investment vehicle created specifically to underwrite part of the bond issue of e-Novia, a factory of innovative startups. Fin-Novia raised nearly 7.7 million in a campaign that ended in March 2020.

WeRoad, a company that organizes online group travel, raised 4 million euros on the platform in October 2021, as part of a larger 13.5 million round. is that

The added value of aggregation

Thanks to the aggregation, Opstart also adds the BacktoWork community to its pool of investors, which will therefore have the possibility of investing directly in the real economy not only with equity but also through other SME financing instruments.

Lending crowdfunding and minibonds will thus allow you to diversify your portfolio with innovative assets and expected return objectives.

Arioldi considers the operation “a project of integration between traditional, subsidized and alternative finance, which today also necessarily passes through aggregation operations between market players who, like Opstart and BacktoWork, have created the history of crowdfunding in Italy, contributing to innovating in a very traditional and conservative sector like finance.

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(Featured image by AbsolutVision via Pixabay)

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