Crowdfunding is a way of financing ideas through the involvement of a large number of individual investors. This method of raising funds has gained popularity thanks to the rapid development of social networks. The result of crowdfunding activities is the realisation of specific investments, while the benefit for “shareholders/investors” is a defined return proposed by the project owners.
According to collected data on Polish savings, domestic households hold over PLN 960 billion in savings, while simultaneously having over PLN 450 billion placed in risk-bearing assets. IMF estimates indicate that over the next 10 years, the potential of crowdfunding in Poland could reach as much as PLN 1.8 billion.
The basic forms of crowdfunding are:
- donation-based crowdfunding, in which capital is returned together with interest;
- equity-based crowdfunding;
- reward-based crowdfunding, in which a shareholder receives the future product free of charge or at a highly favourable price before it reaches the market;
- charitable crowdfunding, where contributions are treated as non-repayable grants for projects, companies or ideas.
Crowdfunding is gaining increasing popularity thanks to:
- convenience (it allows participation in campaigns without leaving home, while enabling the monitoring of thousands of offers appearing each day);
- a low entry threshold (almost anyone can become a shareholder);
- the profitability of projects.
A good example comes from across the ocean. “The median long-term investments of the Lending Club portal deliver returns of over 5% per annum, while returns generated by Abundance Investment can exceed even 8%. From a business perspective, these are very promising figures that make it worthwhile to keep a close eye on various ideas. At this point, we have identified several promising concepts — not only from Poland — that we would like to support,” says Wojciech Szubert, owner of Gran Holding.
