Lasse Mäkelä, CEO of Invesdor, shares his thoughts on where crowdfunding is heading.
Photo credit: Invesdor PR, YouTube screenshot
I'm working on a book on equity crowdfunding in Europe and in my opinion, Invesdor is one of the best platforms in Europe. Recently, Invesdor agreed to cooperate with the business angel network FiBAN. Such partnerships are becoming increasingly popular as a way for angel investors to encourage others to invest alongside them.
FiBAN is the largest Nordic business angel network measured in investment sums. Business angels are estimated to invest 50 million euros per year in Finnish potential growth companies. The vast majority of the sum is invested by members of FiBAN. During Invesdor's two years of existence, a total of 2.7 million euros have been invested through the service.
As a co-operation partner of FiBAN, Invesdor will be providing crowdfunding services and events to members of the former. FiBAN's members include more than 400 Finnish angel investors.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Lasse Mäkelä, CEO of Invesdor, where I asked him why they chose to do crowd-based funding and their unique features compared to other platforms. Here's what he had to say:
Photo Credit: Twitter image of Lasse Mäkelä
Pavel Curda (PC): Why do you run an equity crowdfunding platform?
Lasse Mäkelä (LM): The reasoning is two-fold. One, unlisted growth companies are bottlenecked by a lack of alternatives to meet their financing needs, which is also costing the society. Two, from the potential investor's standpoint, there are incredible amounts of money just lying on bank accounts which could be used much more productively.
What equity crowdfunding does is connect these two needs to solve both. Unlisted companies can fund their growth while realizing significant marketing and product validation benefits, while at the same time people can choose to put the money in their bank accounts to use by investing in growing businesses that they see potential in and actually make a difference, which is something they traditionally have not been able to do.
