“The latest data available are those of 2020, but show a 75% growth in lending over the previous year and expectations are very high for 2021 as well”. This is told by Roberto Ghilardini, founder of Investimento Digitale, a young lending crowdfunding portal born with the mission of putting companies and lenders in contact to grow together. Through the platform, investors will help Italian SMEs that need liquidity to finance their development to find the necessary funds.
“In 2017, lending crowdfunding in Italy had raised 19 million euros, in 2018 there were 51 million, in 2019 they were 70 and in 2020 over 185. This is a sector that offers undoubted opportunities both to Italian SMEs that need to raise capital quickly, both for investors who have the opportunity to diversify their portfolios ».
The advantages of lending crowdfunding
Investimento Digitale does just that: it helps Italian SMEs that need liquidity to finance their development to find the necessary funds. On the other hand, it allows lenders to offer their capital in exchange for interest. «The lending formula is very simple to understand and this is certainly one of the reasons for its success: in practice, it is a money loan» explains Ghilardini. “Furthermore, it has a very low entry threshold. You can invest even starting from 250 euros. With 2,500 euros, for example, it is possible to invest in 10 companies ».
Higher yield
Unlike equity in which the investor becomes a real shareholder, in lending the bond is much less tight and the investment much more liquid, because it is bound by an online loan agreement that defines the terms for the repayment of the amount invested and related interests. Another advantage of lending crowdfunding concerns the annual gross rate of return which for this type of investment can reach up to 12%, therefore on average higher than other types of classic investments.
Investimento Digitale is an innovative startup that was created to support deserving SMEs and presents on its platform projects of Italian companies that need to receive loans with amounts between 50 thousand euros and 2.5 million euros. Depending on the project, the duration of the loan can vary from 6 to 48 months as well as the methods for repaying the capital and interest. «We only deal with development and growth projects, therefore, we do not finance the coverage of debts, losses and taxes. Furthermore, we have developed a very rigid process for the choice of companies in collection by defining a rating model that allows us to select only the best investment opportunities, attributing a degree of risk to each of them, to allow the public lenders to carry out independent analyzes ”concludes Ghilardini.