The Finland-based licensed equity and debt platform Invesdor is one of the first European crowdfunding platforms to have been granted a MiFID licence for investment advice, the reception and transmission of orders, and the placing of financial instruments. Today, the Invesdor team announced they have raised €1 million on their own crowdfunding platform.
The round had 143 investors from 16 different countries. Invesdor co-founder and CEO Lasse Mäkelä, an ex-Merrill Lynch investment banker, sees crowdfunding as a fairly straightforward digitalisation of the ‘tried-and-true’ fundraising process.
“There are currently no truly cross-border platforms in the European crowdfunding market. We aim to be the number one source of European cross-border deal flow for investors around the world!” Mäkelä stated. He also said, that the one major element in the crowdfunding model, and fintech in general, is understanding the regulation: “It is a hurdle we are confident we have crossed.”
The transaction sizes in North European equity crowdfunding have spiked since the Finnish financial supervisory authority made equity crowdfunding a regulated activity and granted Invesdor the first operating licence. The breadth of the licence will make it possible for Invesdor to not only accept investments from international investors but also to organise funding rounds for companies from anywhere in the EEA. Invesdor is currently conducting the necessary notifications and creating country-specific due diligence processes.
Since Invesdor’s licence was granted, two million-euro offerings have been organised on the platform: one by Finnish self-storage company Cityvarasto that is aiming to list on the Nasdaq OMX First North, and one by Invesdor itself. Invesdor was also one of the subscription platforms in logistics group Ahola Transport’s recent IPO onto the Swedish Aktietorget marketplace.
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