Invesdor notches first exit as Heeros Oyj goes public

Heeros Oyj going public, becomes first potential exit opportunity for Invesdor investors.

Finnish equity crowdfunding platform Invesdor has delivered its first exit to investors. Heeros Oyj, a cloud-based financial management software firm, is listing on Nasdaq First North growth market. Heeros raised €660,000 from 198 retail investors in a crowdfunding round on Invesdor in late 2015, at a share price of €2.70. The share price for the public offering is €3.10, equating to an uplift of roughly 15 per cent in just 12 months.

With the Heeros listing, Invesdor becomes the first European equity crowdfunding platform to have delivered an exit via IPO. ReWalk Robotics, which was twice funded by Israeli equity crowdfunder OurCrowd, listed on the Nasdaq in late 2014. But while OurCrowd does not accept retail investment, Invesdor does. In other words, Heeros will become the first publicly traded company to have taken on equity crowdfunding investment from retail investors.

“Last year’s crowdfunding round was a pre-IPO operation for us. Through crowdfunding, we had a lot of new retail investors joining us on our growth journey even prior to listing on a public market,” explained Heeros CEO Matti Lattu.

Heeros has posted turnover of €5.4m and EBITDA of €0.7m in 2015. The company currently has 58 employees, and three offices in Finland, as well as one in Rotterdam, the Netherlands and Stockholm.

This is not Invesdor’s first foray into the public markets. The platform hosted a slice of Aloha Transport’s IPO on the Swedish Aktietorget in June of last year. The money that was raised was in effect a top-up to the logistics firm’s public offering.

While other European equity crowdfunders have previously delivered exits to investors, these have to date come exclusively in the form of trade sales. Crowdcube alumni E-Car Club and Camden Town Brewery were both bought out last year, by Europcar and AB InBev respectively.

Whether or not Heeros shareholders choose to cash in their shares remains to be seen, but Thomas Petroff, country manager at Invesdor, pointed out that these investors now have the chance “to track their investment and its value more closely”.

The subscription period for the Heeros listing began today. The IPO can only be actively offered in Finland, due to the lack of an EU-wide prospectus.