Posted On : December 12, 2022
Raizers is an investment platform originating from France. Raizers was established in 2014 and since them opened its presence in Switzerland, Belgium and Luxemburg. Platform was founded by Maxime Pallain and Gregory Linder. The platform is approved by the French Financial Markets Authority (AMF) as a Participatory Investment Advisor (CIP – ORIAS N°14007002) and by the Belgian Financial Markets Authority (FSMA) as an Alternative Financing Platform (PFA).
Raizers is the largest French real estate crowdfunding platform with 273M raised (December, 2022).
NOTE: This review does not include review or analysis of the projects presented in the platform, neither their performance over time. Selection of investment projects is a sole responsibility of the investor. This review is focused on the quality of the platform, functionalities, ease of use and etc.
As in our other reviews, in the following chapters we focus on the onboarding customer journey, functionalities and other pros and cons of the platform.
Specific eligibility criteria for Raizers accounts cannot be found. On the first registration sheet, your phone number is required and the platform allows to choose from a very long list of countries. We have done the matching it that covers all the countries in the world, but from the first glance the list was that extensive.
Both private and legal persons can invest on the Raizers platform. What is different and interesting, Raizers allows to connect your business account to your personal account as a result you can navigate with two accounts with one log-in.
Source: raizers.com
On the minimum investment amount, Raizers defined a very high entry amount – 1.000 EUR. This is quite a high compared to a market, where you can find some platforms allowing you to invest from 50 EUR.
Onboard is a quite easy on the platform. As a first step, you have to do a registration. Where you have to put a couple of personal details and contacts. They do not require email confirmation. After a few clicks you are already in.
Source: raizers.com
Once you are in, they will ask for a few more personal details, like email, place of birth and etc. Nothing excessive.
After completing this, I have tried to deposit some funds. However I have received a French error message.
Source: raizers.com
It is not very nice experience to receive a message, which you do not understand. Moreover you can not copy-paste it to the translator tool and understand what is required.
Nevertheless this requires you to verify your identify, this you need to go to a link right above the dashboard. Contrary to Estateguru, Profitus and other platforms, Raizers is asking just to upload your ID documents (e.g. front and back of your ID) and proof of address. In the past, I always heated this proof of address documents, as I used to live in rented apartments and none of the bills were coming up with my name. It was always a struggle to fulfil this. These days I just send my bank statements with my address on, it works. As this is a simple document upload, I was expecting this to take few days to be processed, but it was automatically approved. I guess Raizers automatically approves this and reviews this after some time. Saving some money on this with no inconvenience for customers.
I have checked the emails in my mailbox and from he first welcome message to the message stating your identify was approved took 20 mins. I was not on the rush and most likely doing some additional tasks in between, so in reality this could be shortened much more. All in all, relatively easy journey.
On the deposit side. There are two options how to deposit money to Raizers platform. You can do it either a bank transfer or use your credit card.
On the bank transfer, you are being asked to deposit money to a French IBAN, which is held at Mangopay. Company Profile MANGOPAY S.A. (short “MANGOPAY”), is a company incorporated in Luxembourg (B173459), holds an E-Money Institution (EMI) license granted by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) Luxembourg. (No.: W00000005) As per European passporting, the license covers all 31 countries of the EEA. Mango is also a third party provider, which specializes in supporting platforms doing financial transactions. Basically it is an alternative to Lemonpay, just Mangopay holds EMI license, therefore they also can issue their own IBANs.
Source: raizers.com
All in all trusted suppliers, no reason not to rely on them.
For the credit card part, Raizers is also using Mangopay credit card payment solutions. Bonus for having this, however a downs side – fees. They charge you 0,8%. Considering minimum deposit to invest is 1.000 EUR, you would need to give 8 EUR for this. Considering that you want to maximize you returns and looking how to squeeze the margins, this is not the best option to deposit money.
This is the weak part of Raizers. They only offer investments in the primary market. No secondary market, no automatic investment options.
So primary market at the time of doing the review had only one open project with 50.000 EUR remaining to be filled. Total amount to be raised was 2.5 M EUR, but in the eyes of investor, nothing to choose from.
The one project, which is provided for investors is very well described and documented. There are main KPIs, which you would like to follow and make decision based on. LTV is missing, but in this specific project, this is a different capital raising instrument (bonds). As we are not analyzing the projects at this review, we will not go into more details on that.
Source: raizers.com
Besides main KPIs there is additional info section with multiple tabs on various project perspectives, incl. presentation, financials, operator, schedule, documents and comments section. All of them are very well described and documented. E.g. there are pictures on the location, delivery schedule, marketing strategy, analysis of strengths and weaknesses, etc.
Also, you can go into comments section, where the platform is responding to the comments raised by the investors. You can get a feeling on the weak points of the project and where the other investors are looking into. Nice feature to keep this open and transparent.
Source: raizers.com
All in all, only one function of the platform and one project for investment (at the time of writing the review). I would say very limited for the investor to limit their risk. If you would be going for opening an account only in one platform, you should consider if this should be the one.
On the dashboard side, platform does not give additional functionalities as well. You can see and track all ongoing investments as well as past investments. But no aggregated view on the return level or other perspectives. Well you can always argue if you need some, but comparing this to the market level, this could be considered as underdeveloped area.
Source: raizers.com
What is important to mention for Raizers platform, they do have My taxation section, which generates a report for your tax authority on you track record and performance. This could be a very helpful feature to manage year-end headache.
Source: raizers.com
Summarizing the above, simple features, the minimum you would need to track you record and performance.
I haven’t been able to locale fees/pricing section anywhere on the web. Google search haven’t helped on that side as well. So either there are no fees applicable to investors or they are very well hidden.
Summing up, over 7 years of operations, Raizers raized 273M EUR+ capital for various projects, which is significant amount for the European real estate crowdfunding market. In terms of projects offered, Raizers offers various investment options, including bonds, which are not fully secured. Also, for picky investors, the selection of the projects is quite limited. All in all, having an account with Raizers could be an option, but investors should consider if this should be their primary investment account.
Raizers review – 4 out of 5.
December 12, 2022
Review
Nordsteet is a real estate crowdfunding platform, which states to be radically changing real estate investments. Founded in 2017, platform was growing gradually and reached 30,766,205 EUR in capital r... Read More
December 22, 2022
your email address will be published. required fields are marked.