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Co-Founder and CEO Christopher Grätz.
Kapilendo: The digital credit market The future clearly belongs to fintech start-ups and Berlin company Kapilendo is miles ahead. It offers a digital, flexible market for loans and brings verified German borrowers and investors together. The so-called crowdlending is known as an established funding alternative to the traditional bank model. TEXT: MARILENA STRACKE I PHOTOS: KAPILENDO
Kapilendo is a pioneer regarding the online credit market and crowdlending. The Berlin-based start-up around co-founder and CEO Christopher Grätz keeps with the current trend and offers investors lucrative opportunities, which are significantly different from what banks can offer. At Kapilendo, investors lend their money to verified medium-sized companies and receive higher returns compared to those generated by saving accounts or partially even by stocks. That is how predictable and fixed-income investments are made possible. The investment duration varies between one and five years and investors can already get on board with 100 euros. If the duration is longer, the rate of interest is equally higher. 120 | Issue 73 | April 2019
“Investors decide to whom and for what purpose they lend their money and they can get to know the company online,” Christopher Grätz explains. “In short films we introduce the financing projects, the company and the entrepreneur to our investors. The business models are diverse and range from known brands such as the restaurant chain L’Osteria and classic medium-sized companies, for example, a producer of feather and wire-formed parts, to growth companies such as Nano Focus AG.” Of course, Kapilendo follows strict, reliable criteria for eligibility. It uses public data sources such as Schufa and Creditreform as well as the expertise of its qualified and very experienced in-house rating team.
“A company has to be operating in the market for at least three years and it has to generate revenue of 300,000 euros. In addition, there has to be a positive equity ratio and a positive operating result,” Grätz adds. “Then, our rating team does an indepth evaluation of the company. Aside from the financial key figures, the team also takes criteria such as industry sector, market position and market development into account.” As soon as a company is on the financing platform, things usually move quite quickly. Grätz explains that, three years ago, the financing process through Kapilendo took 43 days. Today, it only takes five days, and he adds that the financing of smaller business loans often happens within only a few minutes. Kapilendo offers a true alternative to the traditional bank option – and that goes for both investors and borrowers alike.
www.kapilendo.de