CrowdedHero review: earn 19% interest with P2P lending
19 per cent interest per year with the help of P2P lending, is that possible? It is! The provider CrowdedHero grants lending for young companies, which you can also benefit from as an investor. In this review, I will show you my personal CrowdedHero experience, the most important information about the provider, possible risks and current projects!
In brief:
- With CrowdedHero, you can invest in P2P lending that runs for short periods of time
- I myself have invested 2,000 euros in a current project called Simpleros
- With an investment, you can secure an attractive return of 19 per cent
- The fact that business angels and investors from start-ups are also on the board of CrowdedHero is particularly exciting, which shows how interested everyone is in ensuring that projects develop well
What is CrowdedHero
Before I show you more about my investment, let’s have a closer look at the provider CrowdedHero so that you can get an overview of topics such as supervision, opportunities, the team behind the project, interest rates and finances.
I now invest on a new platform called CrowdedHero, which was founded in 2020. I use it to invest in crowdfunding projects. With their Simpleros project, they are in direct competition with Crowdcube, for example.
An important difference of CrowdedHero is that already profitable, young companies are financed, which can pay you dividends on their further development path.
Personally, I think that’s really good, because we’re not talking about projects that will only yield profits in 10 years or even more, but projects that are already profitable and can be worthwhile for investors.
The most important data at a glance
| Founded: | October 2020 |
| Company headquarters: | Latvia |
| Regulated: | Yes, through the Latvian Central Bank |
| Offer: | Crowdfunding projects |
| Returns: | Annual 19 per cent (project-dependent, current example Simpleros) |
| Minimum investment amount: | 100 Euro |
| Secondary market: | Yes |
| Fees: | 1.25 per cent (project-dependent, current example Simpleros) |
| Auto-Invest | No |
Before I had a closer look at the provider’s offer, it was important to me whether the platform is supervised or not:
- The provider is regulated by the Latvian Central Bank, which is another positive sign for investors as it gives us legal certainty
- This way, we know that our money is going where it is supposed to go
The provider CrowdedHero is still comparatively young, which makes the team behind the project all the more important. In the screenshot below you can see the advisory board, which looks quite interesting, including a former Secretary of State for Finance from Portugal and a former member of parliament.
Also represented is a lawyer with extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions, who was even actively involved in the new constitution in Latvia after the fall of the Soviet Union.
The interest rates for the customer
How much does CrowdedHero actually charge customers who take out online lending here? That’s an interesting question that I asked myself. If we look at the website, we see a lending calculator that you can play around with. Personally, I think the calculator represents the most favourable case.
There is also translated, standardised information on consumer credit. Here we can see that someone who wants to borrow 650 euros and pay it back in 30 days will have to pay 195 euros in interest.
- This leads to a repayment amount of 845 euros, as it is also an unsecured lending, which is normally required on the spot
- This is not the type of lending for which a person has enough time and can compare offers
- The nominal interest rate is 365 per cent per annum, which is really high
However, we should not take this value too seriously, as these loans are not designed for years, but rather for weeks or days and should not be used for longer. This is where the 1 per cent per day comes from.
At first glance, this may sound like a form of loan sharking and unfair treatment of debtors when these high interest rates are charged. Ultimately, however, no one would lend money if investors could not predictably make money from unsecured lending.
A special feature of CrowdedHero
There are not only companies that are young and urgently need the money: instead, business angels and investors from start-ups are on the board of CrowdedHero, who also act as lead investors themselves and invest in the projects.
But why exactly is this point important?
- These people have an immense interest in ensuring that the deals offered on the platform develop positively
- They are doubly liable with their own money, once through their investment in the respective company and once through their participation through CrowdedHero
As an investor, I find this starting point for a potential investment very interesting. It is a positive signal to all investors, as it is clear that everyone involved is keen to see the projects develop well.
CrowdedHero risk: How secure is the platform?
In the case of the current Simpleros project, the new loan applications go through a strict online check in the background while the data is being typed in. The acceptance rate is just 18.6 per cent of all incoming loan applications.
Attention! Despite the automated risk assessment of debtors who submit loan applications, around 30 per cent of all loans end up being defaulted on. These can no longer be recovered quickly and easily, which means that this money is irrecoverable and high interest rates have to be charged to make up for these losses.
- In order to better assess the risk, we should also take a look at CrowdedHero’s finances and figures
- It should be mentioned that, apart from the 300,000 euros, there are no debts for Crowdestor investors
- Furthermore, apart from the company founder herself, there are no other shareholders involved in Simpleros
I therefore believe that they can certainly use this additional funding of a maximum of 250,000 euros to finance further growth at this point.
The founder behind the project is Santa Lemsa. She previously worked as Chief Risk Officer at Robocash and at 4finance, which many of us already know. This shows that she has a lot of experience in this industry. It should also be mentioned that her company has grown considerably since it was founded in 2020, but is still relatively small with a valuation of 1.87 million euros.
If we take a closer look at the figures, we can see that they already made a profit after tax of EUR 263,459 last year, which corresponds to a margin of 32.6 per cent or a return on equity of 62.5 per cent.
In 2021, their first full year of operation, they made a loss of 58,529 euros, but were quickly able to turn this into a profit of 219,689 euros in the following year 2022 and build up a so-called debt coverage ratio of 6.79.
This means that they can pay 6.79 times the debt burden for the year with their income, which is a clear sign that they have sufficient cash flow and not too much debt.
In the first 6 months of 2023, they were even able to increase their profit to EUR 263,456, although this is only half a year and not a whole year. This gives the debt coverage ratio a factor of 8.10.
CrowdedHero 2025 has these products on offer
Let’s take a closer look at a current project. This will run for about 2 weeks before it is closed for investment. The project is called Simpleros. It is a Spanish lender for short-term P2P lending.
- Some people in our community may already know Simpleros
- They were one of the few successful projects on Crowdestor that actually generated an attractive return for investors
- It is worth taking a closer look at the whole thing just because they have already proven themselves once
The project was represented on Crowdestor in 2021, just a few months after the company was founded in 2020. They borrowed a total of 300,000 euros at 12.6 per cent interest, as you can see in the screenshot below in the key investment information.
Personally, I would say that the investment at the time was much riskier than an investment today. The company was younger and had no experience. In addition, there was no existing portfolio that could already demonstrate success and therefore skills. However, it is also important that it was possible for investors in the project at the time to withdraw their money quickly on a daily basis.
Withdrawal is not possible with the current project, as it is a long-term investment. Strictly speaking, these are preference shares, which are the first to be entitled to dividends from this already profitable and growing company. I have also invested in this project.
My CrowdedHero experience: What I invested
In this review, I will show you my personal investment and my experiences. I also wanted to ask the provider a few specific questions in order to better understand how it works and to offer other investors more transparency.
My portfolio
If I want to invest now, how exactly am I involved? I have invested 2,000 euros in the Simpleros project to show you the process. I also have confidence in the project. You can find the ‘Invest now’ button directly on the website.
The project can pay off handsomely for investors, just like CrowdedHero itself. If you are also interested in investing, you should know that it starts at 100 euros. You can invest here, which means you can also support our project without incurring any further costs.
If you want to invest, there is a 1.25 per cent fee. You will then be shown important data that you can check at your leisure. This includes important facts about the investment and the costs incurred. In between, you have to tick a few boxes.
You can then choose the payment method: either by credit card or bank transfer. I paid by bank transfer myself. The money arrived the very next day.
In this way, I have a stake of just over one per cent in a so-called special purpose vehicle. What is important for investors is that investors receive a contractually fixed return of 19 per cent before tax on the investment per year, as can be read in the Key Investment Information Sheet.
After deducting the SPV’s taxes, this results in a return of 14.25 per cent per year. I still need to find out from my tax advisor in Germany whether this means that I no longer have to pay withholding tax.
If the founder sells the entire company, the crowd investors must sell their stock. However, it is stipulated that the crowd investors must make at least 25 per cent return on their investment in this case.
Transparency and further information
For me personally, this sounds like a very interesting project in an industry in which I have been working for several years. Nevertheless, I still had a few more specific questions for the company, including how the deal actually works with the Vested Shares Investment Agreements. The answer I received is shown below:
This explained to me that there are fixed-interest and equity investments at CrowdedHero and that this agreement allows the owners of the project to buy back their shares from the crowd investors. This is used particularly frequently for debt in Spain.
I also found out what transparency obligations Simpleros has towards me as an investor:
I was told that they are obliged to publish their figures on a quarterly basis. The SPV, as an intermediate company, has to do this every six months, which is good for investors and increases transparency. If Simpleros is unable to make the payments for any reason, the shares go to the SPV’s intermediate company.
What else could happen?
- First of all, the 19 per cent interest per year applies for at least two years
- An investor, including the founder herself or someone else entirely, could then buy the shares from the crowd investors
- As I said, investors have to walk away with at least 25 per cent profit here, in addition to the interest they still earn
- In addition, the company may reduce the share capital or dissolve the special purpose entity
Conclusion: My CrowdedHero review shows an interesting project
To summarise, I have invested €2,000 in a loan that earns 19 percent interest over two years. Interest rates are very likely to fall again in the next few months and I will be able to secure these high interest rates permanently with a company that we have known for some time as investors in P2P lending. So far, they have paid back very reliably and have become increasingly profitable.
Should the case actually arise that the lender could no longer pay, I have many rights. In such a case, investors can also access their equity and do not have to face a court case that can drag on for years, as is the case with Mintos, for example.
As an investor, I find the conditions attractive in this way and am pleased when I look at the planned future projects. For example, there is a deal with Swaper, another provider that we already know. I am very excited and look forward to further projects. The important thing is that the time to invest is limited. The Simpleros project presented here only has 2 weeks left to run. You can still invest during this time if you are interested in the 19 per cent interest.
