Companisto, the largest German crowdfunding platform, successfully closed its INVEST grant self-funding round over the weekend. 520 investors rallied and raised €4,833,195 during the campaign.
Crowdfund Insider reached out to the Companisto regarding the raise:
“We think our financing round and Ameria’s financing round are a great success and milestone for us. Our two new models for equity investments (for shares and GmbH shares) have been successfully established in the German market right now,” responded a company spokesperson. “Both models can be combined with the INVEST grant if the company is eligible. This means for us, Companisto has now outstanding models for online startup financing in Germany.”
The platform, co-founded by David Rhotert und Tamo Zwinge in 2012, declined to discuss the raise at this juncture. Just before the campaign closed, however, Zwinge commented on a blog regarding the benefit of equity investment, with reference to INVEST in particular,
“With an investment in equity, investors become co-owners of the company and benefit from the strong legal position of a shareholder. In concrete terms, this means that, in addition to the profit and exit participation, they will now also be given voting rights in shareholder decisions. This enables them to play an active role in shaping the company’s success. To this end, investors can benefit from the INVEST grant amounting to 20 percent of the investment amount, provided that it is investments in INVEST eligible companies. This is, of course, a strong incentive to invest in venture capital.”
To recap, the platform video and INVEST pitch deck indicated that the subsidy guarantees a 20% reimbursement on the investment sum when investing in an innovative business. Investors will reportedly also receive a 25% tax break on generated returns, as in an exit. Investors also no longer have a €10,000 limit on Companisto — there is now no limit to the amount of investment, similar to Great Britain’s SEIS program.
In addition to becoming a the DACH region leader and Germany’s most active private venture capital lender since 2015, Companisto touts an investment volume of €61M, more than 94,000 registered investors, 114 completed startup financing rounds ( including Weissenhaus and Ameria) and 5 exits. To date, €4,716,811 has been paid to Companisto investors.
The platform recently expanded its investment options to include the Companisto Angel Club for affluent investors and business angels who are given the opportunity to participate in companies at preferential conditions.
At this time there is only one active campaign on Companisto: vanilla bean. The Regensburg-based packaging-free restaurant delivery service has secured €181,250 from over 210 investors toward its €500K goal for 10% equity offering. The startup has just initiated its delivery service, according to a campaign update, and will close its campaign in five days. Please find more details here.
In a recent blog, co-founders discussed more about Companisto’s investment ideas and new participation model (“Beteiligungsmodell”)?
“With the new Companisto equity investments, we are proud to present a model that makes it possible to invest in Companisto in the way that professional investors and business angels prefer to do – in real GmbH and AG shares,” commented Zwinge. “We have digitized a legally demanding and complicated process and radically simplified it for investors. As a result, a unique and professional investment product is available for the German-speaking region.”
Rhotert noted benefits of the new investment model for companies mentioned briefly above,
“Companies can now complete unlimited funding rounds. We are thus opening up a real financing perspective for all ambitious founders: They can start with seed financing with us and later complete growth financing if the company develops well. Ideally, we then accompany the companies until a possible exit, such as an IPO. For founders, this may also take away the uncertainty of constantly having to look for new investors.”
In the blog, Zwinge also indicated that Companisto would like to offer real equity investments for early stage financing, but is limited by the current legal situation and the associated prospectus obligations. At this time Companisto is able to economically reflect growth financing rounds from EUR 3 million.
“This means that we are offering a completely new market instrument for the joint growth financing of innovative companies in Germany, but we continue to see great demand for early-stage financing,” explained Zwinge.
Regarding future plans, Rhotert responded,
“We will continue to work to promote entrepreneurship and innovation in Germany. We experience every day on our platform how well this can work. With the new Companisto equity investments, we are doing our part and venturing into a completely new dimension of financing startups.”
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