April 18, 2020
Today another e-mail from Crowdestor anouncing a new head of SME
E-mail from Crowdestor
Dear Investors,
In 4-5 years CROWDESTOR aims to become one of the TOP-3 crowdfunding platforms in EU in the SME sector. As a part of development plan, that was outlined in detail in the White Paper, the only solution to achieve this is by automating due diligence of borrowers, have a strong team of experts and expand to brand new operational markets.
And today we are proud to announce our new team member. Please, meet Artur Geisari, our new Head of SME. Artur is a financial expert with over 15 years’ experience. He is an author of the book “Sober Gorilla” – a step-by-step guide on how to write a business plan. He runs seminars for small-medium sized business owners and helps them to improve their business. He is an entrepreneur with vast experience in different business areas. And he is co-founder and CEO of Monify – a quickest and most technologically savy SME lender in Baltic States and Poland. And the story behind why he decided to partner-up with CROWDESTOR is even more fascinating than the fact that he is joining us.
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Hi. My name is Artur Geisari. I am a financial expert, consultant, entrepreneur, yoga instructor, loving husband and father of 3 wonderful girls. My journey with helping business funding started when one of my customers was waiting for a bank loan for over 2 months. And got rejected. Then I decided to change the industry. I co-founded Monify – fully on-line SME lender. Since 2017, Monify has analysed 20’000 applications, lent 15+ million EUR worth business loans, expanded in 3 new countries and achieved scoring and underwriting automation so that average time to make an offer has reached 33 minutes on average, and a default rate 3.3% in 2019.
As a part of our funding, we have worked with five p2p platforms – Capitalia, Iuvo Group, Viventor, Grupeer and Debitum Network. Rates were high, but our business was handling it as we were lending at 24-60 % p.a. But there was one problem – by selling claim rights for short-term deals loan originator can only refinance its existing assets instead of attracting expansion capital. We needed to find a proper, stable and liquid source of funding. From the available market possibilities, crowdfunding seemed like a good idea. I made a list of 80 crowdfunding platforms with operations in Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius, Helsinki and London. I spent a year to talk with them. In each one of them there were certain restrictions, problems and limitations. Somewhere company registered in Latvia wasn’t eligible; somewhere SME lending wasn’t eligible; somewhere only paydays; somewhere borrower needs to have a lead investor; and somewhere to supply 50% of total funding by own pool of investors.
From a range of platforms out there, CROWDESTOR seemed like the best fit, but there was one problem. It took me one 1 month and 3 contacts to get to the first meeting with Janis and Gunars, another 2 months to get to a second one. Guys seemed to be overloaded. From my perspective it was strange, because we are lending in 33 minutes, and here it takes 2 months to get a meeting. And I knew that I was not the only one to wait.
At the beginning of 2020, when investment amount in crowdfunding market dropped significantly, the opportunity to calmly sit down and talk finally appeared.
It turned out that Janis and Gunars are having numerous of meetings with each of the borrower, visiting sites, analysing case by case manually, preparing contracts manually. They have a very small, but dedicated team. They have spent 6 months on a single project Due diligence which is a timeframe we got about 6000 applications and rejected 5850 of them. And still they have a long, long line of borrowers waiting and demand from investors far away exceeds number of projects.
I saw passion in them. I saw the hard-working culture. I got direct answers to direct questions and zero hesitations to answer my own due diligence questions. I saw deep understanding of why business lending is very important. The vision is what got me. We both believe SME is the backbone of economy. We both see limited funding options for real business, which is the one that brings well-being to society. We both see that investors lacked possibility to directly lend money to vast range of sustainable and meaningful range of SME.
We decided to join forces and bring more value to investors and borrowers.
We will automate lending process and implement guidelines that would benefit both parties. Investors would have clear understanding about decision making, more projects to invest and risk diversification options. SMEs would have access to funding within minutes.
I am happy to join CROWDESTOR and I truly believe it is the best place where my knowledge fits in. Talk to you soon in 10in10 and live webinar.
Best,
Artur Geisari
Head of SME at CROWDESTOR
www.linkedin.com/in/arturgeisari
