Making a long story short, March 2019 has been the month which has seen the first two IPOs within the equity crowdfunding space.
Indeed, early this year Sweden based FundedByMe received approval to list its shares on the Nordic Growth Market (NGM) and went public on 8th March 2019 whilst the Italian equity crowdfunding platform, Crowdfundme, completed its listing process on Borsa Italiana’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM) and started trading on 25th March 2019.
Both companies confirmed that this approach would help their business development plans in the long run.
For instance, in a recent interview one of Crowdfundme founders, Tommaso Baldissera Pacchetti, stated that the rationales behind their move are to involve more people in supporting growing SMEs via their platform as well as supporting their future business innovation activities.
On their side, Daniel Daboczy, CEO of FundedByMe, called the listing a “clear step in the direction of a long curve of possibilities.” In other words, “as a listed company FundedByMe is able to expedite the strategic growth as well as actively pursue the European and Asian consolidation work forward.”
An article published a few years ago claimed that equity crowdfunding would put at risk the existence of alternative investment markets: “If this market grows at a similar rate this year and Aim fails to reverse its downward trend, alternative finance will overtake the London Stock Exchange’s junior market.”
However, “between equity crowdfunding platforms and stock exchanges there can be several synergies, for both us and financial players,” Baldissera promises.
But nevertheless, the real challenge could come from dividend payments as equity crowdfunding platforms are still in the red and this could explain why one of the biggest equity crowdfunding platforms in the world, Crowdcube, still raises funds to fuel their expansion via equity crowdfunding.
Oliver* 