Okay, let's start with the most burning question: Please describe LEND in one sentence.
LEND is Switzerland’s leading crowdlending platform.
Your platform connects people that need a loan with investors. What differentiates you from a classic bank?
With a classic bank you have a balance sheet in the middle: so there’s always a middleman
maximizing the spread between borrowing and lending. That is not the case with LEND: we
just take a flat fee from the transaction, regardless of the level of the interest rate.
Could you tell us a bit more about your vision?
We want to make finance fair and accessible for everyone. We want to be a real alternative
to the traditional banking system. So when people think about money, they think about
LEND. Going forward, we believe that marketplace lending i.e. crowdlending will inevitably
crowd out banks, as it is the much more efficient and less risky model for society.
What important milestones have you already reached on your way?
The most important milestone is that we have the seventh year in a row where we can show
positive performance for our loan portfolio. Investors that have invested 1000 Swiss Francs
in 2016 and that reinvested their returns would now have 1400 Swiss Francs. That is a
wealth increase of roughly 40% over the time. So it’s kind of a stable and boring investment
that really works well. It’s easy to lend money, but it’s difficult to lend money to the right
people. Our track record shows that we have done that: we have funded more than 300
million Swiss Francs in loans and on average lenders receive 4.5% interest per year.
Can you please tell me a little bit more about your team?
We are a diverse team of 20 people from all backgrounds: we have people from banking, IT
and legal. We all have one thing in common: we want to challenge and change how finance
is done at the moment.
You are a crowdlending platform and obviously you’ve worked many years with the crowd. Now you are offering shares to the crowd via OOMNIUM. Is there a deeper reason behind it?
We believe in the power of the crowd. We have more than 80’000 borrowers and around
7’000 investors that have made it possible for us to transact the 300 million of loans. Without the crowd we would not exist. We now want to open up our company and let the
crowd participate. We are convinced that good will come from this.
You are offering «preferred shares»: What does this mean exactly and how do crowdinvestors benefit from it?
Preferred shares or so called “Vorzugsaktien” have a downside protection in case of an exit.
If the price paid by a buyer of LEND is below the protected level, the holders of preferred
shares will be paid first and any surplus amount would then be distributed to other
shareholders.
What will you use the money for that you raise through this crowdinvesting?
We will use it to grow our existing business, create new products such as investments in
green technology and continue to scale additionally in IT as well as improve automation and
efficiency.
One last question: Where do you see LEND in 2 years?
We believe that in two years time we’ll be even more in people’s minds – we already have a
very good brand recognition now. We look for profitability (we were profitable in May 2023
already) and we can show that we are close already. In two years time, we’ll be a company
with a revenue of around 5.5 million Swiss Francs.
To learn more about LEND and their Crowdinvesting, you take a look at their investment pitch.
