During 2016, we have raised €17,800,000 through 28 projects (vs €6,000,000 among 23 projects in 2015) and have already been able to secure a very promising pipeline for the upcoming months by contracting 28 projects for the coming year.

As for most startups this growth isn’t visible in the financials just yet. Indeed, our company focuses on the long term which is why we have secured an important capital increase of €2,500,000 thanks to a successful financing round.

2016 has been a year of considerable investment in our platform, in our processes and in our teams. By closing some promising deals at the end of 2016 and by being able to populate a strong pipeline through interesting new partnerships, we expect to further grow our activities throughout 2017.

As a leading investment platform in the Belgian landscape, we have been continuously shaping the market for start-up investing by democratising the access to venture capital. Since its creation, our company has aimed at setting high standards for its sector - a great example of our company’s achievements has been the enforcement of a dedicated legal structure for the start-ups it finances, ensuring that each funded company is isolated from the others thanks to dedicated compartments.

Another example is the accreditation by the FSMA. After weeks of extensive teamwork, MyMicroInvest became the first crowdfunding platform in Belgium to receive official accreditation from the Financial Services and Markets Authority. This enabled our company to offer Tax Shelter opportunities legally to all its investors.

Like every other start-up in its first years of creation, we are constantly working on developing our offer and our platform in order to answer the needs of an evolving market. And despite the delay in the Tax Shelter implementation, our efforts are reflected in the growing level of our activity (already 60% of the 2016 activity has been reached during the first quarter of 2017) and the optimisation of our strategy through new partnerships.

The Startup Tax Shelter for crowdfunding was launched on February 1st, a year later than expected. Since then, we have been able to offer Tax Shelter to our investors through five eligible campaigns that have raised in average twice as much as ordinary campaigns and have also attracted in average twice the number of investors. We wanted investors to fully understand the Tax Shelter opportunities and therefore created a dedicated website and eBook on the subject.

We have noticed a clear demand from investors for Tax Shelter opportunities but also the investor’s awareness of the risks associated to investing and hence a need for diversification.

As an established leader on the market, our company acknowledges that equity investment bears in general its fair share of risk. We are very committed to providing interesting products to our investors while at the same time educating them about the benefits of diversification. That’s why, as part of the constant evolution of our strategy we intend to expand its partnerships with incubators to offer a diversified way to invest in qualified investment opportunities. 

We believe that investing in today’s start-ups can finance tomorrow’s economy by creating new jobs. This is best achieved by offering our investors a method to easily diversify their investments in start-ups and scale-ups and to create their own portfolio. This is the best way to align their interests with our ambition to accelerate the real economy.

Our first partner is Startup Factory, a disruptive and successful start-up studio incubator that will be offering, alongside MyMicroInvest, the opportunity to invest in 5 projects in 2017 and 10 projects in 2018.

Our track record shows that we are moving forward together, with our investors and entrepreneurs, in a supportive way to create employment and to add value to our selected projects. All of the indicators clearly show that debt and equity investing, both offered by MyMicroInvest, are essential in the current financial landscape and are recognised by experts as true financial alternatives. And we are proud to be considered as a leading actor in this industry.

We are confident that, with a strong pipeline, continuous innovation and constant efforts to educate investors, MyMicroInvest will be able to continue its growth throughout 2017. Our main focus will be to steadily and strongly grow our activity level and to continue to invest in the future while remaining leader in our field.