A crowdlending campaign has, for the first time, raised a total of €1.5 million in Belgium. The announcement came on Wednesday from the platform Look&Fin, which specialises in such participative finance loans. The company, Carimat Matériaux, based in Braine-le-Château and active in construction, has raised this record amount.
The legal framework around crowdlending was relaxed last summer. The maximum total that SMEs can now lend via a participative finance loan platform has thus gone from €300,000 to €5 million.
In total, 483 individuals have invested in Carimat Matériaux, for a global total of €1.5 million. The group, which has specialised in construction since 1988, recorded a turnover of €56 million in 2017 and employs more than 170 people.
Last year, it produced year-on-year growth of nearly 10% compared to 2016. Such performance, combined with significant payment delays, from its key accounts, generated a need for a large working capital, the company explains. As indicated above the company approached the Look&Fin platform, with a value of €1.5 million.
Look&Fin is already suggesting that an investment portfolio of €2 million is likely to be on offer to its investors by the end of this year.
The Brussels Times
