Mintos beats crowdfunding target in pre-sale

Mintos has surpassed its crowdfunding target before its fundraising campaign has gone fully live.

The European peer-to-peer lending marketplace unveiled plans for a crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube and launched a re-sale last week.

It set a €1m (£900,000) target but has already raised €5.4m as of this morning (17 November) with the project only due to go live to the wider public this afternoon.

This is Mintos’ first crowdfunding campaign and is part of a larger fundraising round planned with venture capital firms.

The funds will help Mintos as it plans to secure an investment firm licence so it can operate in other countries.

It also wants to broaden its offerings with new investment products such as exchange traded funds and has plans for a debit card.

“Demand for alternative investments has grown, since the interest rates on deposits have been persistently low and equity markets have become crowded—leaving retail investors with very few good options,” said Martins Sulte (pictured) chief executive and co-founder of Mintos.

“In the past, when retail investors did look at alternative investments, they often found that these came with high minimum investments and high fees that kept them out of the mass market.

“Current demand is for modern solutions that are both accessible and not correlated with traditional assets. Mintos’ goal is to offer loans as a new alternative investment type, fitting retail investor needs.”

Read more: Crowdfunding platforms Seedrs and Crowdcube to merge