Last Tuesday, February 24, at 10:00 a.m., the Vivero de Empresas of Vicálvaro received to Javier Villaseca, a reference in the national panorama of StartUps and founder of Investor Partners, a global network of union between entrepreneurs who need capital and investors who seek to participate in business projects.
In Spain, this company has already managed to contact more than 4,000 investors and has raised more than 7 million euros for more than 70 business projects. They are now in a moment of full international expansion and operate in 19 Ibero-American countries, offering their brand on 5 continents.
A response to the lack of traditional financing
Almudena Morales, from Madrid Emprende, introduced the attendees to this young entrepreneur who told them that in 2010, at the age of 23, when he worked in a major financial entity, he always encountered the same adversities, the problem of new and small businesses in finding financing.
At that time, the idea of “crowdfunding” was beginning to be introduced in Spain from the United States, which supplied the financing needs of entrepreneurs that banks -which, unlike other countries, account for 80% of financing companies- could not cover due to to the economic crisis that our country was going through.
He saw that this was the perfect time to launch Socios Inversores, the first Equity Crowdfunding platform as a collective investment system.
The three axes of the success of a business project
In order to be one of the projects that seek financing in Investor Partners, an analysis of the following three aspects must be passed: The viability of the business, the human team and the return offered to potential investors.
Investments in Spain are not like in the United States
When it comes to investing you have to be realistic, in Latin America and Spain the investment system is very different from that of the United States. In our country, financing should begin to be obtained by resorting to small rounds to finance well-defined projects in a viable business plan. Here it is not realistic to think of just selling an idea for a huge amount of money.
On the other hand, a basic aspect to be able to obtain financing for a project is to provide the investor with information on when and how the investment will be recovered, the so-called “exit” of the investor.
Even so, in Investor Partners, projects of between 200,000 and 300,000 euros are easily financed, distributed among 5 or 6 investors per project.
types of investors
Javier tells us about the different types of investors. Although the most common profile is that of the investor who only seeks to find an opportunity to obtain a return on their investment, many also want to get involved in the project by providing experience and advice. Some investors also offer themselves as an industrial partner if they like the business idea and want to import it into their territory. They not only provide capital but work, becoming a kind of franchisee. They seek both to invest and to find business opportunities.
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