Do You Speak Crowdlending?

In the 23rd episode of the "Do You Speak Crowdlending?" podcast, Ghassen BENHADJSALAH had the pleasure of hosting Conor Gibney, the head of finance at Lendermarket. 

Before joining Lendermarket, Conor gained valuable experience as an investment manager at DunPort Capital Management. 

He has also showcased his leadership skills by managing various corporate finance, strategy, and advisory consulting teams across different companies.

Conor's educational background includes business, law, and corporate finance studies in Ireland, and he is a seasoned chartered accountant. With his diverse expertise, Conor brings a wealth of knowledge to his role as the head of finance at Lendermarket.

Speaking of Lendermarket, the platform has been thriving. It has facilitated an impressive €310 million in loans.

Join Ghassen and Conor in this engaging conversation as they delve into the world of crowdlending, and discover more about the latest trends and developments in the industry.

Tune in now

In episode 22, we hosted Konstantin Boyko. he is the Co-Founder at CrowdSpace. He uses his platform to contribute to the crowdfunding industry in Europe by offering arming platforms, investors, and fundraisers with the right tools to succeed! 

In this 21st episode of the 'Do you speak Crowdlending?' podcast, Oreste D'Ambrosio tells us about his startup and its milestones. 

Build Lenders is a crowdlending real estate platform based in Bologne, Italy. It is focused on providing individuals with the opportunity to invest in real estate projects.

Oreste has twenty years of experience in the field of construction, both in Italy and abroad. He also worked for several real estate agencies and multiple startups.

The exciting mix of experience that Oreste accumulated after studying Economics in Italy played a significant role in nurturing his ambitions to create a startup where anyone can invest in real estate, even those who do not have large amounts of capital at their disposal.

Build Lenders was founded in 2021. However, it has successfully funded more than 15 projects.

Listen to this episode to learn about Oreste and Build Lenders's story and other exciting insights about real estate crowdlending.

GoParity is a sustainable investment platform based in Lisbon, Portugal. Its mission is to connect companies looking to finance their sustainable projects with individuals and entities who want to invest sustainably. In this 20th episode of the 'Do you speak Crowdlending?' podcast - CEO and founder Nuno Brito Jorge tells us about their projects and how the story began. 

Through working as an advisor on energy with the European Parliament, it was there that Nuno nurtured his experience in management, renewable energy and sustainable investment. He obtained a master's degree in management from Barcelona. On his return to Portugal, he asked his stepmother to rent the roof of her small hotel in Portugal so that he could install a photovoltaic power station that he turned into a business model funded by crowdlending.

GoParity started in 2017 as a crowdlending platform for solar power projects. By the end of 2021, the platform had raised €10.4 million in sustainability projects!

Check out this episode to explore Nuno and GoParity's story and many other exciting insights about sustainable investment. An episode that you should not miss!

Erich Bonnet is the CIO, CEO and founder of Smart Lenders Asset Management, a Paris-based asset manager exclusively managing portfolios of loans issued through online lending platforms.

Erich has had an impressive career with a background in trading and asset management. He began his path as a trader of interest rate derivatives at a French bank. Having worked in both OTC markets and floor trading, he eventually launched ADI, an alternative asset management company specialising in arbitrage strategies. The company became the largest independent alternative investment manager in Paris with more than 400 institutional clients and 6.5 billion EUR of Assets Under Management (AUM). 

After selling this company, Erich started focusing on niche investments...

It was in 2012 – when he, for the first time, heard about marketplace lending through his friend Renaud Laplanche (the famous Frenchman who co-founded Lending Club, a successful American peer-to-peer lending company). Erich became very intrigued with this asset class and felt it was very attractive to European investors. Soon after, he decided to launch Smart Lenders Asset Management – a company that is to become one of the largest funds in Europe for this asset class.

As of June 2021, Smart Lenders Asset Management hit a significant milestone and invested more than 1 billion USD in loans for institutional and professional European investors to date. Talk about being impressive!

Tune in to this incredible episode to learn how Erich did it all! His remarkable journey, his take on the Europe and US marketplace lending space, the perks of this asset class, and lots more. It's an episode that cannot be missed! 

“With farmers who use wheat and oats for baking bread, we take this as collateral. Wheat is actually great collateral as it doesn’t require any know-how to evaluate it - you simply use the market price to do it.”

Nikita Goncars is the CEO and co-founder of LendSecured. With a degree in finance and over 10 years of experience in the real estate and the lending business, he and his co-founder, Edgars Tālums, first established a lending company funded by local banks and capitals from high-net-worth individuals. With this being a success, their next step was a business idea that would allow them to enter a new market and make it possible for an even wider range of investors to invest in loans. Thus, with great enthusiasm, hard work and dedication, LendSecured was born – a platform created by industry experts providing collateral-backed investment opportunities.

But their achievements do not stop there! After noticing that many European farmers are seeking liquidity boosts but do not have access to affordable loans, LendSecured decided to fill this market gap and recently launched a new financing service for the agricultural sector. We congratulate them for providing an economic lifeline to farmers while creating a great impact on society!

Tune in to this episode to explore the crowdlending landscape in Latvia, how secured digital loans work in practice for the agricultural industry and the perks of this asset class from the investors perspective. Along with many other valuable insights!

Adrian A. Gunadi, co-founder and CEO of Investree, saw a challenge and turned it into an opportunity that impressively paid off. Adrian and his co-founders left their almost 20 years careers in the banking industry to start a crowdlending platform in Indonesia. They saw that SMEs were not getting access to the financing they deserved and knew they needed to fix this. Fast forward to 5 years later, Investree has provided nearly 550 million dollars worth of loans. The company also saw a growth of 30% last year despite the Covid-19 crisis. They've also kickstarted the year by becoming the first crowdlending platform in the Philippines and soon expanding to Thailand. Talk about being unstoppable!

Check out this episode to explore Adrian's perspective on Indonesia's crowdlending landscape and its evolution in the past years. Listen to his thoughts on why there's a high demand for alternative financing and how he foresees the future of crowdlending in south-east Asia. This, along with many other exciting insights – it's an episode that cannot be missed! 

“We have had new record months every month since the pandemic began, in terms of new investors signing up on our platform. I think it’s because people think that the stock market is too volatile.” 

Would you sell your apartment to start a business? Sebastian did! Sebastian Martens Harung has had multifaceted past careers - from goalkeeper for Norway’s 1st division to an investment banker and ultimately, the co-founder and CEO of Kameo, a digital marketplace for crowdfunded loans to small businesses and property developers. Kameo started with a humble beginning in 2014 with Sebastian selling his apartment and renting a smaller place to use the extra money to invest in his business. Now, Kameo has over 30 employees and operates in Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm! 

In this episode, he shares valuable insights into the Crowdlending landscape in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden and how Sweden’s relaxed approach to Covid19 has been more beneficial than harmful to the Crowdlending industry!

Luca Andre Frignani decided to combine his two passions and took a leap of faith that immensely paid off. Having worked for UBS and a former quantitative researcher – it was at his last stop (a hedge fund in Zurich) where he met his future co-founders. From there, they began experimenting with digital lending. In this episode, Luca shares with the Crowdlending podcast listeners his views on the immense potential of digital lending. How it can enhance investment performance and the criteria to keep in mind when choosing a lending platform. 

How are funds participating in the crowdlending landscape? What are their experiences in the Swiss market? And what are the benefits of crowdlending from an institutional investor’s perspective?

Jorrit van Rijswijk is the head investment analyst at Dynamic Credit headquarters in Amsterdam. In this episode, he shares with us a new strategy to tap into the possibilities that come with the rise of online lenders, and more. Tune in to discover Jorrit’s experiences as an analyst in the crowdlending world!

From childhood pals to co-founders of i2 invest – Gregor and his friends from Wettingen saw a need for access automation to marketplace lending. And they decided to launch their company!

In this episode of the crowdlending podcast, Gregor shares with us the current i2 invest projects, including their recent fundraising. He also discusses his experience in investing in different crowdlending verticals (Consumers, SMEs and real estates) and why loan originators should have a niche rather than having different verticals at the same time. In his experience, crowdlending has nearly no correlation to other asset classes. He talks about how it will have a better ROI after this crisis.

Elena Ionenko is the co-founder of TurnKey Lender, a global leader in Unified Lending Management. She is also remarkably named one of the top 100 women in the fintech world in 2019. Her other achievements include co-founding two other start-ups, also relating to the financial industry. 

In this episode, Elena shares with us her experience and knowledge in marketplace lending and takes us on a journey to explore the world of alternative lending.

As a finance pioneer, Vikas Jain is Senior Commercial Director at Funding Societies. Having a solid finance background, Vikas worked across the Real estate, Banking and Telecommunication industry until he decided to join the Crowdlending industry. In this episode, he gives us some insights into how the crowdlending industry is becoming popular in the SoutheastAsian market.

Valued by Forbes as one of the top 25 most influential women in Latvia for two years in a row, Evita Lune is a Partner, Global Head of FinTech Practice at Pedersen & Partners. Evita works extensively with FinTech clients from over 40 countries. 

In this episode, Evita takes us on a journey to discover how innovation is happening in 
the Baltics. A lot of unique insights are shared about Crowdlending, including the secret 
sauce that made this part of the world become one of the most vibrant regions in Europe. 

Jamie Heaslip is a man that defies all stereotypes: his background is in mechanical engineering applied to the medical field, he had a stellar career as a rugby player for the Irish national team, and now he is the Head of Brand Marketing at Flender. As if all this wasn't worth a conversation on its own, Jamie is also an expert in crowdlending. In the latest episode of "Do you speak crowdlending?" Jamie joins us to share a bit about his journey and a lot about the crowdlending landscape in Ireland.

As a blockchain believer, Jori shares with our listeners his journey of building a crowdlending platform on a blockchain ecosystem. Jori founded the company Ethichub, and created a p2p lending marketplace that focuses on financing farmers in South America that banks won't bother to help. Thus emerged Jori, the agro-fintech expert.

As an Actuary and ex-consultant, Torsten shares with our listeners his journey toward being part of the crowdlending industry. He goes through his role as the CEO of NeoCredit.ch and his future milestones. Torsten gave some great insights about diversifying investments inter and intra-platforms and encourages lenders to look at crowdlending as an asset class, not a gambling tool. He also has chosen a preferred fruit that will surprise most of us! 

Passionate about helping SMEs in their journey, Tobias decided to leave the banking sector after 12 years and join the direct lending or crowdlending sphere. He is today the founder of finwize.ch, ambassador at crowdify and general director at Tresio. 

Tobias shared with us great insights about SME financing and how crowdlending is a great option to ensure growth.

With his diverse professional background from Law to Banking to Consulting and finally to the Crowdlending industry. Roger shared with us his insights about innovation in the industry and how crowdlending in Switzerland can move forward.