How crowdfunding with Lendahand works

Choosing projects to crowdfund

Crowdfunding with Lendahand gives you total control of where your money is invested. You can choose projects based on criteria such as the social impact your investment will make, the country in which the project is located, investment maturity length, or interest rate.

Making your investments

All investments made through Lendahand start at €50. Above that minimum, you can determine how large or small of investments you want to make. Once you determine which project you want to crowdfund, select the amount you wish to invest and submit your payment via iDeal (Netherlands), Bancontact (Belgium), or credit card (Visa/Mastercard). There are no costs associated with crowdfunding a project and you will always receive a confirmation email for every investment you make.

How the money gets transferred

Once the full project amount a business is seeking has been funded by our crowd of investors, the money will then be wired to the local partner or directly to the business on the first day of the following month. At that point, your investment will begin earning interest.

You can always find all the information about your investments in your “MyLendahand” dashboard. There you’ll find your account settings, your financial dashboard, all the projects you’ve invested in, as well as detailed information about your transactions.

No matter which type of investment you choose to crowdfund, whether a local partner or a direct investment, you can be certain that Lendahand was diligent in the assessment of all the parties involved. Their acceptance was based on both strict social and financial criteria.

How your investments make an impact

With any business, access to capital is needed for growth and development. In the countries where Lendahand operates, getting business financing is often impossible or simply too expensive for small and medium-sized businesses. Your activity crowdfunding these businesses through our platform helps greatly in fixing this broken financial system.

Investments made by our crowd allow entrepreneurs to expand their businesses and create jobs. This leads to an improvement in their socio-economic status and ultimately provides an improved standard of living for their employees, their customers, and their entire communities.

With increased income, families gain access to many basic needs they might not have been able to before. This is our way of fighting to eliminate poverty in developing countries, which is the mission behind Lendahand as a whole.

Receiving your repayments

Investments are repaid in equal installments, plus interest, every six months. Returns are based on the amount invested plus the established interest rate of the projects you crowdfund. When you receive your repayments, you may then choose to re-invest in other projects or have the money deposited back into your bank account at no charge.

Managing your risks

We advise you to spread your crowdfunding investments among different local partners, direct investments, and countries, this way you limit your risk exposure in the event of a default. Be sure to consider the risks of investing and crowdfunding before making any investment decisions.

Note: We recommend that you only invest in crowdfunding responsibly. The Dutch financial regulatory body (AFM) advises investing no more than 10% of investable assets and to never invest with borrowed money.