Cutting Edge Online Marketplace for Dutch SMEs Arrives

One of the continent’s fastest growing and most exciting equity crowdfunders has quietly forged a powerful alliance with a leading Dutch financial advisory firm.

Symbid and Credion will be partnering to deliver a hyper efficient online finance hub – capable of offering a range of services that go above and beyond pure equity crowdfunding activities. Credion will reportedly be processing the entire funding of its 1,200 clients (carrying an anticipated funding volume for 2015 of $850 million) via the Symbid platform. Symbid – an established, publicly listed, equity crowdfunder – boasts an impressive array of online tools for deal making and monitoring. It is that technological edge that appears to have lured the allegiance of Credion.

Korstiaan Zandvliet, Founder and CEO of Symbid, explained:

"With our crowdfunding platform growing exponentially, this agreement validates Symbid's tiered business model and sees our crowdfunding brand expand into online deal-making and monitoring while adding new funding options. This partnership is the keystone of our funding platform and, alongside our upcoming European roll-out, means we're adding solid monthly recurring revenue streams. It is now possible for the first time to track the real-time performance of SME investments with high-quality financial reporting. This technology means one of the biggest risks associated with SME investing is covered by Symbid.”

"Through the combination of Credion's years of experience in financial deal-making, Symbid's technological innovations and, of course, the crowd, we're making safe online investment a reality for both investors and entrepreneurs."

There’s heaps to absorb here. For those of you that remain slightly confused as to the nature of this arrangement, we’ve summarized its key components below:

• Symbid’s base of 27,000 active investors will now be blended with the top-tier, accredited investor clientele of Credion – which is comprised of banks, equity based solutions and private investors.
• Credion will use the platform to match-make between its extensive network of Dutch investors and entrepreneurs.
• The Symbid Financial Technology platform will facilitate B2C and B2B deals – creating additional monthly recurring revenue streams via Credion’s subscription to the platform. Symbid will receive these fees in exchange for providing Credion with access to its monitoring and deal-making tools. This potentially lucrative new line of revenue is of course good news for the publicly-traded Symbid’s shareholders.
• The Credion partnership is designed to create a more holistic, online hub for all things modern finance. Symbid’s cloud-based monitoring technology represents an advanced method for keeping tabs on SMEs via an approach that is closely aligned with best practice in the accountancy space. That facility permits investors to make more enlightened investment decisions and serves as a shrewd compliment to the platform’s funding capacity. The synergies here are not dissimilar to those between MarketInvoice and its online accountancy software partner Xero – except that Symbid’s SME monitoring has not been outsourced.
• All deals facilitated by Credion will henceforth be processed via the Symbid platform. In turn, every SME that comes through Symbid in search of funding will be referred to the now interconnected Credion financial advisors – and indeed to any other advisors that choose to join the network.
• The overarching goal is to blend two forward-thinking online investment communities in order to create a swift and über-efficient marketplace for private enterprises.

Carlo van der Weg of Credion summarized:

"Working together with others to identify new ways to improve access to capital is a hallmark of our company philosophy. Streamlining the way in which entrepreneurs find that crucial investment is a goal we share with Symbid. The open funding portal we're creating with Symbid means we can connect all our clients with the right investors while also attracting, venture capital, investment funds and other financial firms."