Symbid, one of the first investment crowdfunding platforms worldwide and now The Funding Network, announced a strategic partnership with Economic Board Utrecht (EBU), a Dutch regional economic development group, to support small businesses with over $1 million of funding.
The partnership will provide local, sustainable initiatives with loan capital via The Funding Network by Symbid. EBU will contribute up to 25% of a start-up’s required growth capital while the 30,000 private investors and 40 institutional investors connected to The Funding Network will invest the remaining capital.
Co-founder and CEO of Symbid Corp., Korstiaan Zandvliet stated:
“Small businesses are the engines of our economies. It’s great to see a major economic organisation like EBU recognize this by committing over $1 million to innovative start-ups via The Funding Network. This collaboration is really about simplifying the way our small businesses find funding at a time when bank financing is increasingly out of reach. We believe that by connecting alternative and traditional finance with standardized data protocols, The Funding Network enables a more efficient and transparent way of doing business. Symbid sees this partnership as another step toward becoming the go-to funding platform for small business.”
Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are crucial drivers of growth in regional economies but can struggle to obtain finance from traditional sources. A survey by the European Commission found that 39% of Dutch SMEs were rejected for bank financing in 2014, the highest rate in the European Union.1 SMEs account for 79% of total employment in the Utrecht region of the Netherlands.2
EBU’s partnership with Symbid encourages high-growth SMEs to seek investment via a more effective capital allocation service, The Funding Network™. Entrepreneurs connecting to The Funding Network™ can access all types of finance, traditional and alternative, through a standardized deal format. This partnership is an endorsement of the new, online model for the financial industry and validates Symbid as the go-to platform for SME funding.
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