Fagura raised 780,000 Euros in equity investments in its second round on Seedrs

Posted on ianuarie 23, 2023 by admin

Fintech startup Fagura.com announces that it has successfully closed its second round of equity investments, held on the London platform Seedrs.com. More than 280 investors showed their support for the project and their trust in the team, investing amounts varying from 20 Euros to tens of thousands of Euros. In total, the investment that the startup raised was over 781 thousand Euros, including contributions from seven angel investors who joined the round directly. The total amount raised represents 195% of the round target and is one of the largest amounts raised on Seedrs by a startup from the Romanian ecosystem.

The crowdfunding campaign took place in two stages: the private one, where investors from Fagura’s community primarily invested and the public one, open to investors from all over the world. As a result, Fagura will offer circa 13.5% equity at at a 5.78 million euros post-money valuation. The funds raised in this investment round will be used to expand the project in Romania and develop the first digital banking services on the platform.

Tudor Darie, CEO @Fagura: „The second crowdfunding round was a real success for us, considering the international crisis we are going through. We were able to raise twice as much funding from our community compared to the first round, and these resources will help us grow faster in times of uncertainty. The money will also enhance our support for the people and the ideas that are changing the world.”

Mihai Stipanov, Mozaic Ventures, UK: „For us at Mozaic Ventures it is a priority to invest in ambitious projects and founders from Moldova. We found the team at Fagura very competent and capable of scaling up the product both regionally and globally. It is this scaling potential that attracted us the most in making this investment decision, but also as the original technical solution that Fagura offers”

George Teodorescu, Angel Investor, Regional Director at Mixbook, Silicon Valley: „I believe that an investment in Fagura at this stage is a vote of confidence in their highly innovative business model, one that is adapted for the present times and technologies. I was impressed by the experience and the enthusiasm of the founding team and the way the company blends the synergies of its strategic partners and its investors to sustainably expand its footprint into new markets and products. I liked to see their ambition to create a range of financial services that people absolutely need and to build a community around their ecosystem.”

As of today, Fagura intermediates loans for individuals and companies in Moldova exclusively. However, investors from the EU and the UK are welcome to the platform.

Fagura.com was launched in May 2019 and is an alternative investment platform for loans. The company was registered in Estonia with the business first tested in Moldova. Fagura deploys an automated scoring mechanism that allows loan decisions to be made in a few seconds.

Fagura received several national and regional fintech awards: Top 3 best FinTechs, 2019 (Romania), Brand of the year in FinTech, 2020 and 2021 (Moldova), Startup with the greatest impact, 2020 (Moldova). The company also came in first at the InnovX BCR Scaleup Accelerator in Romania (2022) and won The Next 100 Global Companies award (by Global Banking & Finance Review) and the Euro-Asian Startup Awards in 2022.

Fagura a atras 780 mii euro investiții în equity în a doua rundă pe Seedrs

Posted on ianuarie 23, 2023 by admin

Startup-ul fintech Fagura.com anunță că a încheiat cu succes cea de-a doua rundă de investiții în equity, desfășurată pe platforma londoneză Seedrs. Peste 280 investitori și-au declarat susținerea pentru proiect și încrederea în echipă, investind sume de la 20 până la zeci de mii de Euro. În total, investiția pe care o va ridica start-up-ul este de peste 781 mii de euro, inclusiv și contribuțiile a 7 angel investors care se vor alătura direct și reprezintă 195% față de targetul setat inițial și cea mai mare sumă atrasă pe Seedrs de către un start-up din spațiul românesc.

Campania de crowdfunding s-a desfășurat în două etape, cea privată unde au investit prioritar investitorii din comunitatea Fagura și cea publică, deschisă pentru investitorii din întreaga lume. În rezultat, Fagura oferă investitorilor equity în proporție de cca 13.5% la o evaluare post-money a afacerii de 5.78 mln euro. Fondurile atrase în această rundă de investiții vor fi utilizate pentru extinderea proiectului în România și dezvoltarea primelor servicii de digital banking în platformă.

Tudor Darie, CEO @Fagura: „A două rundă de investiții în equity a fost un real succes pentru noi, având în vedere criza pe care o parcurgem. Am reușit să atragem o finanțare din partea comunității noastre de două ori mai mare față de prima rundă, iar acest resurse ne vor fi de mare ajutor să creștem mai rapid în perioadă de criză și să sprijinim oamenii și ideile care schimbă lumea.”

Mihai Stipanov, reprezentant „Mozaic Ventures”, Marea Britanie: „Pentru noi, la sindicatul de investiții Mozaic Ventures a fost o prioritate să investim în proiecte ambițioase și fondatori din Republica Moldova. Echipa Fagura ni s-a părut foarte competentă și capabilă să scaleze produsul regional și global. Anume acest potențial de scalare ne-a atras cel mai mult în a face această investiție, la fel și soluția technică originală pe care o oferă Fagura.”

George Teodorescu, Angel Investor, Director Regional Mixbook, companie din Silicon Valley: „Consider că o investiție la această etapă în Fagura este un vot de confidență în modelul de business extrem de inovativ, adaptat vremurilor și tehnologiilor curente. M-a impresionat experiența și entuziasmul echipei fondatoare, modul în care compania conjugă sinergiile partenerilor și investitorilor strategici pentru a-și extinde amprenta sustenabil în noi piețe și produse, cât și ambiția de a crea nu doar o gamă de servicii financiare de care oamenii au absolută nevoie, ci și o comunitate umană integrată în jurul ei.”

Astăzi, împrumuturile de pe platforma Fagura.com sunt disponibile pentru persoanele și companiile din Republica Moldova, însă la capitolul investiții – pentru toți cetățenii UE și UK.
Fagura.com a fost lansată în mai 2019 și este prima platformă investiții alternative în împrumuturi, înregistrată în Estonia și testată în R. Moldova, cu un scoring automatizat ce permite luarea deciziilor în mai puțin de 1 secundă. Platforma a fost premiată în domeniul Fintech la mai multe evenimente naționale și regionale: Top 3 best FinTechs, 2019 (România), Brandul anului în FinTech, 2020 și 2021 (Moldova), Startup-ul cu cel mai mare impact, 2020 (Moldova), dar și câștigători ai Acceleratorului InnovX BCR (2022), The Next 100 Global Companies (by Global Banking & Finance Review) sau premianți la Euro-Asian Startup Awards 2022.

Key questions and answers for the Fagura Equity Investment Round

Posted on noiembrie 25, 2022 by admin

We’ve thought about the main questions and answers that investors might have in this round, and we’ve listed them below. WE hope this will be useful for you:

How can I invest in equity at Fagura?

If the amount you want to invest exceeds EUR 50k, please send an email to Cristian at cristian.pasa@fagura.com. Otherwise, you need to follow the following steps:

A. Create an account on Seedrs (details here)

B. Pass the digital identification and the risk test

C. Find the Fagura Campaign (link here)

D. Send your money by a bank transfer (if you have an EURO account in Moldova): it is not necessary to have the amount available in your Seedrs account immediately to finalize the investment. You can top it up in 1-2 days thereafter. You cannot use a bank card issued in Moldova to top up your Seedrs account because Stripe (the processing company they use) does not accept the cards issued in Moldova. There should be no such problems with the cards issued in the EU/UK.

E. Transfer the money to your Seedrs account within a maximum of 7 days to complete your investment (if you did not transfer it initially). Pay attention to transfers from the Republic of Moldova, they can take up to 3 working days.

What is the exit strategy?

Following an investment in Fagura equity through seedrs.com, there are 3 main ways to exit/capitalize on the investment:

Seedrs Secondary market – opened once a month. Shares can be sold there to other Seedrs customers. The possibility of adding a profit margin above the face value is provided. After the first crowdfunding round at Fagura, for instance, such sales took place with an addition of up to 500% from the nominal value of the shares in the first round. This is not guaranteed however and will depend on the willingness of other investors to make the purchase.
Acquisition of Fagura OU by another company: all shareholders will be compensated based on the percentage share held and the value at which the transaction will be made. This is a mid-long term scenario (3-5 years).
Listing Fagura on an international stock exchange: the shares will be transformed into stocks at the market value, and these will be able to be traded by each individual investor. This is a long term scenario (more than 5 years).

Will I receive dividends annually?

Fagura is a startup that will invest in its growth for the foreseeable future. Thus, all company profits will be reinvested in scaling the business, which is why we do not plan to pay annual dividends. The present investment should be seen as a long term capital gain one (as per explanations above).

How can I fund the investor account on Seedrs?

Bank card or bank transfer. Images below:

The bank asks me for a confirmation document to process the bank transfer, what can I show them?

If the bank you use asks you for confirmation documents for this investment, you have two options:

When you set up the investment on Seedrs, you choose bank transfer as the method, and Seedrs sends you an email with all the investment details. You can save this email as *.pdf and use it as a confirmation for the bank. The bank should normally processes the payment as a result;
If you transfer a larger amount and the bank wants other confirmations, you can write to cristian.pasa@fagura.com and Fagura will sign a Term Sheet with you, in which the conditions of the investment will be explained, so that you can have a signed document to present to the bank.

How long will the investment round last?

The investment round will be open until December 15, 2022 at the latest. Fagura also reserves the right to close it sooner without notifying investors beforehand. This can be caused, for example, by reaching the round budget. The funding campaign will be followed by a bureaucratic procedure of approving and signing the documents, transferring the money raised from Seedrs to the Fagura accounts, issuing the investor certificates by Seedrs. The whole process might take 2-3 months until you get to see the shares issued by Seedrs in your account.

What are the risks of the investment?

We will list below the biggest potential risks associated with the investment, a fact that you are warned about in all the communication that Seedrs and Fagura do:

The biggest risk is that Fagura becomes insolvent / declares default. The team at Fagura will most certainly make every effort to avoid this scenario from happening. We also have some team members that are investing during this round as well. But it is important to understand that seed investments are risky and hence such a default possibility exists.
There is a risk that Fagura will not grow fast enough and attract a new round of funding at a similar or lower valuation than the current one. This will cause a potential decrease in the value of the investment.
Investing on Seedrs does not come with a guarantee of exit – the sale of shares may take a shorter or longer time, depending on the interest of other investors in buying the shares you own. Similarly, 5-7 years may pass before Fagura is acquired by another company or listed on the stock exchange. It is impossible to predict this.
More risks associated with investing on Seedrs can be found at this link.

How much could I earn if I invested, e.g. 10 thousand euros?

When calculating the return of an investment, the following aspects must be taken into account: the value of the company after the current round (namely the value of EUR 5 million plus the amount that will be raised in the current round), the value after the next round and the time of the investment.

For example: EUR 10k in the previous round would have represented around 0.43% of Fagura. If Fagura closes the current round with 700k EUR raised, the value of the company would be 5.7 million EUR post-money. That 0.43% (based on the investment in the previous round) will now represent 0.36%, but of a higher company value. Respectively, those 10k EUR invested will now represent around 21k EUR. Thus, within a year, the value of your investment increased by more than 2X. Of course, it is not guaranteed that the value will double every year in the future. It might grow even faster (eg: 10X in the coming years), but it is also possible it will grow slower. Plus, you have to take into account that Seedrs may charge certain fees, which should be checked individually by each investor.

Can I trust Seedrs and the investment made through them?

Absolutely. Seedrs.com is an FCA regulated platform in the UK. FCA is one of the most rigorous financial regulators in the world.