New land investment platform aims to raise more than £500,00
European land investment platform LandEx is looking to raise up to €639,630 (£546,877) from an equity crowdfunding campaign, to expand its team and develop more products since its September launch.
The firm, which enables people to invest in farmland and forestland, has raised €63,107 so far on Fundwise.
LandEx says that fractional ownership of land is impossible and it cannot allow investors to own part of the company that owns the land, as the regulatory costs would be too high.
Instead, it uses a crowdfunding model, with a loan contract for investing. The loan has changeable interest, so that that the value depends on the value of the asset and the investors benefit from the full increase of asset value.
“As the land has no other loans, there is no need to fear bankruptcy,” it said on its fundraising page. “The loan investment is backed by a mortgage set for that specific land which is held by a collateral agent.”
LandEx said there is enough farmland and forestland sold every year in its current and future markets of Estonia, Finland, Sweden and Germany, for it to have no supply issues.
As of 4 November, the platform has had two successful listings and has three listings live with more in the pipeline. It said it has 600 users from 14 countries, with €54,000 invested and €67,000 in deposits.
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LandEx is looking to raise €149,799 to €639,630 on Fundwise to build a team of eight to 10 people, including hiring a community manager, operations specialist, web developer, a back end developer and a head of legal.
The platform said this would allow it to develop new product features such as LandEx web, integration with payment providers, a voting mechanism, LandEx loans and an SaaS offering to larger land owners.
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LandEx said it would use the funds for community development and marketing to educate potential users about land investments via Geenius, paid marketing on Google and Facebook and direct sales to high net worth individuals and wealth management companies.
The platform said it would consider another fundraise in the fourth quarter of next year if needed.
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“LandEx is the first investment platform where everyone can easily invest in sustainable farm-and forestland,” the platform said.
“LandEx will unlock the true value of land by democratising access to land investments.
“With carbon capture becoming a top concern for governments and companies around Europe, land-based carbon capture will add a new income stream to land owners, making land one of the best long-term investments going forward – we want everyone to have access to this.
“We are a first mover in this market, starting a journey to digitise land for a number of financial services.
“The goal of this fundraise is to build a small and focused team to develop new product features and build our community of investors.”