Seedblink's Instant Investments

First-hand investments

Seedblink is a crowdfunding platform for growing companies from small investors. Companies looking for funds share information with the platform's customers, who then have the opportunity to invest in them for a predetermined price.

The company was founded in 2019 by four people: Ionut Patrachau, Julian Valder, Andrei Dudoiu and Radu Georgescu. "All of us are over 50-years old, extremely successful, the type of people with two secretaries and three drivers," Georgescu points out with a smile. As chairman of the board of directors, he is directly responsible for the company's strategy and products. In his own words, Seedblink is a company that takes care of company capital in three directions: "We allow investors to get in, get out, and get good management in the meantime."

The platform makes equity investments available to small investors, with the minimum investment being 2,500 euros (there is also an entry fee of about 2%). In March 2023, Seedblink also created a secondary market where investors, in addition to buying, can also sell their shares.

In June this year, the company announced a new product, Nimity, which aims to take care of the post-investment and pre-sale period. "Nimity allows the founder to manage his own capital to digitize all the processes that are related to him," explains Georgescu. The platform helps an owner keep track of the shareholders, their shares and the capital raising process. It can also distribute shares among its employees, send documents to shareholders and other bureaucratic and administrative services.

For you and for me

The company received a license from the European Securities and Markets Commission (ESMA) for crowdfunding services in 2022. "There are about 50 companies that are certified for crowdfunding in Europe, Seedblink is the only one that I know of that is completely pan-European," Georgescu points out. According to the ESMA register, there are about 120 companies with a license to organize crowdfunding, but most such as Italy's YeldoCrowd focus on the local market and region, and others such as Spain's CrowdCube - focus only on certain Western European countries.

"We have offices in Bulgaria, Austria, Romania, and Ireland, and since we acquired Symbid in the Netherlands, we have an office there as well. The companies raising funds are all pan-European as are the investors," says Georgescu.

According to Seedblink's website, the platform has assets exceeding 800 million euros, and the funds raised from investors amount to more than 300 million. In total, more than 1,900 companies use the services of the Romanian company, and the investors on the platform number more than 90,000. Most companies use Nimity. "300 companies have raised money through the platform, and the rest are clients of the capital management plan only," explains Georgescu.

Of these three hundred companies, about ten are Bulgarian. "But how do you define Bulgarian? Let's take Alcatraz - an American company with a Bulgarian founder. It is a perfect example because they have an office right across the street. Even though we invest in a company based in Delaware, we call it Bulgarian. So I would say around ten companies," says Angel Hadjiev, Seedblink manager for Bulgaria. Soon, two more Bulgarian companies are expected to attempt to raise funds via Seedblink.

"We see that Bulgaria has been connected to the startup world long before Romania was," Georgescu points out. He adds that Bulgaria is the second most important market for Seedblink after Romania. "It is completely natural that we grow in the same region. Although we write in a different way, we have similar cultures," adds the entrepreneur.

A decrease of demand

As interest rates rise and inflation increases, investors' savings are getting thinner. For companies whose earnings are far in the future, survival and access to capital become more difficult and risks are increasing. However, the company manages to neutralize the effect thanks to its scaling. "On an individual basis, we're seeing a significant reduction in the willingness to invest. The appetite for risk is perhaps a little smaller." However, Seedblink is on a growth curve, and, Georgescu argues, the company was not created for short-term profit. According to data from the Romanian-companies.eu platform, revenues are around 600,000 euros in 2022, with losses of 1.6 million euros.

However, with the license from ESMA, the company has begun to attract clients from all over Europe, allowing for a much larger pool of potential investors. "If you look at each investor individually, yes, there is a decrease. But if we look at our pool of investors, we see a big increase in the ability to invest," says the Romanian businessman.

According to the site, the investors are almost 100 thousand, but most came after the acquisition of the Dutch platform Symbid. "This is one of the oldest crowdfunding platforms in Europe. About 70,000 of these investors come from Symbid," explains Georgescu. Bulgarian, Romanian and Greek investors are about 20% of the whole lot. The rest are from all over Europe. "We have investors from more than 95 countries, even from the Middle East," adds Hadjiev.

I'm looking for money

Not every company can raise funds from Seedblink. According to Georgescu, "there is a funnel" - a team of scouts selects the startups and provides the list of chosen companies to a group of investment managers who individually select them. "Then they get to a kind of committee of the investment managers where the projects are discussed. And then whatever is left goes to the investment committee at the Seedblink level, which is basically the four founders," explains Georgescu. According to him, in 2022, they looked at 1,500 companies and about 3% managed to enter the platform.