Today, large-scale sustainable energy projects are financed by banks, corporations, investment funds and also public development funds for regional-national infrastructure projects. However, to develop a truly sustainable energy society across Europe and reach the EU’s Sustainable Development goals, more small and medium-scale sustainable energy projects (between 50.000€ and 1.000.000€) must be realized. Indeed, both our project developer partners and investors have confirmed to us that many such projects in Europe are stalled due to a lack of financing.
This becomes even more important after the ratification of the Paris agreement, meaning large investment sums must be committed to keep climate change under control. But at the same time, the aftermath of the financial crises has limited public spending, and stricter regulation for the financial sector has also limited its capacity to finance this. To cover this gap, private investment must step in, and crowdfunding arises as a perfect tool to supply financing to small and medium energy projects.
ECrowd is a positive impact crowdlending platform which enables local developers to raise debt financing through the community. ECrowd! has financed already more than 1M in projects ranging from 15.000€ to 250.000€. However, due diligence process for these projects is often is overly complex and consumes excessive, valuable time, making it expensive for smaller projects to receive financing.
As part of a broader market feasibility, ECrowd! is implementing a crowdsourced due diligence process, unlocking the enormous amount of knowledge and experience in its user base, and making the due diligence process cheaper and more agile.
The overall objective of ECrowd! is to unlock financing for small scale positive impact projects, through building a community of committed investors, and building the right tools to ensure maximum transparency and efficiency in the process. Objectives of this project were threefold:
- Create a go-to-market business plan focused on early adopter regions in Europe: A business plan containing real stakeholder input (quotes/comments) complete with our revised Business Model Canvas and benchmark comparing ECrowd!2D with competing platforms across Europe.
- Present an alpha release to potential users and collect detailed feedback: Personal interviews and focus groups with institutional investors, project developers/ESCOs, as well as an expert group from our current investor database. Stakeholders will respond to a questionnaire gathering detailed feedback on the benefits and specifications of the new ECrowd!2D innovation.
- Develop a multi-channel marketing strategy
- Discover ways to protect technology and commercial interest and freedom to operate
