Big news this week is the announcement of the IPO of Funding Circle, one of the largest P2P platforms

Alternative Finance Trends Alternative Finance is growing rapidly and takes its place in the financial system. What are the latest trends and how will the financial eco-system develop in the next 10 years?



From P2P-lending to ICOs and from crowdfunding to marketplace lending I will provide a weekly overview of the most important news. Every week I will ask an expert to provide in-depth insights of local developments and challenges in their country.

Big news this week is the announcement of the IPO of Funding Circle, one of the largest P2P platforms in Europe. Will this lead the way for more IPOs for Alternative Finance platforms? This week I will focus on Alternative Finance in Slovakia. The Slovak government announced they are working on crowdfunding regulation. Ivan Filus will provide a detailed overview of the current status of alternative finance in this country. Articles this week: The Slovak Ministry of Finance considers the need to regulate crowdfunding

Funding Circle plans to raise £300m in IPO

Seedrs partners with Republic to enable European businesses to co-raise from U.S. investors

Crypto Startups Pull Back On Raising Big ICOs

Expert of the week: Ivan Filus (Slovakia) Feedback on this edition or ideas of articles to share in this newsletter? Just send a reply on this newsletter or email me at ronald@kleverlaan.com. Ronald PS. Is this newsletter forwarded to you? You can subscribe here

Number of large ICOs are declining

Expert of the week : Ivan Filus (Slovakia)

What is the current status of Alternative Finance?

Although Slovakia is regularly ranked as moderate innovator in the EU Innovation Scoreboard, the innovation performance is increasing, especially in SME in-house product innovation. This creates a high demand for financing development and introduction of new products into market and growth. Access to finance has been improved but alternative sources of financing are rarely used by Slovak innovative companies. The most recent EU Country Semester Report (2018) reveals that while 11% of start-up projects in Slovakia are financed through crowdfunding, venture capital financing only accounts for 2% of funding and was used by 15% of Slovak start-ups.

When Slovak startups think about financing their venture they mostly use their own capital. Only 11% of startups took advantage of crowdfunding.

Limited offer of relevant platforms for equity and loan crowdfunding is far below the actual demand from innovators. The overall annual investments to crowdfunding for Slovak companies are estimated about 5 M€.

Currently (June 2018) the Slovak Ministry of Economy (Centre for Financial Innovation) is considering the necessity of regulation of the crowdfunding arguing with the lack of legal certainty for all involved parties.

Can you give us an inspiring case from your country?

Crowdberry is the biggest crowd-investment platform in Slovakia offering customers, fans and other relevant parties to become co-owners of Czech and Slovak business ventures and participate in their growth. Crowdberry is offering online platform for investments, transaction management, business advisory, investors club and forum. The investments are targeting not only traditional businesses : IT platforms : Boataround - Yacht booking portal Highly innovative companies operating in medical diagnostics : MultiplexDX - Personalised Cancer Diagnosis



Mixed reality technology : Matsuko - 3D technology for remote online communication

Ecological solutions for better living : Ecocapsule - Designer mobile micro-house

Waste management system : Sensoneo - Smart waste monitoring system

In Crowdberry was established in 2015 in Slovakia and in June 2017 has announced expansion into the Czech Republic.

What are the biggest obstacles for growth?

Currently, main barriers in development of the alternative financing market in Slovakia are : very limited number of platforms and funding for equity and debt crowdfunding



general awareness and cultural readiness for new forms of financing



rather restricted investors’ access to companies after investment (decisions, equity)



uncertain situation in the regulation.

However, Slovakia also holds promising opportunities for alternative financing growth such as number of potential innovative companies (ideas) for investments, availability of funding from potential co-investors, low availability of traditional funding for higher risk innovative SMEs and availability of good practices and solutions for platforms abroad.



Current State of Alternative Finance in Europe

Albania | Armenia | Austria | Belarus | Belgium | Bosnia & Herzegovina | Bulgaria | Croatia | Cyprus | Czech Republic | Denmark | Estonia | Finland | France | Georgia | Germany | Greece | Hungary | Iceland | Ireland | Italy | Latvia | Lithuania | Luxembourg | Macedonia | Malta | Moldova | Monaco | Montenegro | Netherlands | Norway Poland | Portugal | Romania | Russia | Serbia | Slovakia | Slovenia | Spain | Sweden | Switzerland | Turkey | UK | Ukraine

Contact

Do you have any questions regarding (trends in) alternative finance, don’t hesitate to contact me by replying on this newsletter. This newsletter is part of the Altfinator project en supported by the European Commission to promote alternative finance in Europe.

Did you enjoy this issue?

If you don't want these updates anymore, please unsubscribe here If you were forwarded this newsletter and you like it, you can subscribe here

Powered by Revue