Latvian agricultural fintech LANDE raises pre-seed to expand to Romania
The €550K round is led by LATBAN, with the participation of BADideas.fund and additional investment coming from a Seedrs campaign.
Since September 2021, when Lande merged a brand with LendSecured to expand to the Estonian market, it is an additional sign to see the European expansion of LANDE on the European market.
The agricultural financing and crowdfunding platform LANDE helps small and medium-sized farms obtain capital using machinery, land, or future harvest as collateral. By expanding to Romania, LANDE will support its highly active agricultural sector, currently affected by increased production costs due to the current geopolitical situation and the ongoing climate crisis.
Romania is a significant regional food exporter accounting for 10% of EU grain and oilseed production. By making financing more accessible for medium and small farms to invest in improving their productivity and efficiency, there’s potential for increased production output. This topic is of vital importance given the growing global food crisis.
The demand for agricultural financing is high across Europe, with the total agricultural funding gap for small and medium-sized farms in the region estimated at € 46 billion. Due to the escalating energy crisis and the rise in production costs, European farmers lack funds to start the season.
By enabling financial support to small and medium-sized European farms, LANDE is doing more than reducing the regional funding gap – we’re contributing to regional and global food affordability.
says Nikita Goncars, CEO of LANDE
More than 1700 investors have registered on the platform to invest in Europe’s agricultural industry.
It’s not only a good option to diversify one’s investment portfolio but also a chance to engage in supporting processes that affect billions of people’s lives.
The average interest rate on the platform is 10.9%, whereas the average loan-to-value (LTV) is 42%. To become an investor on the platform, a person must have a Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) bank account. The platform has partnered with LemonWay, reaching complete segregation of funds, execution of know-your-customer (KYC) procedures, and compliance with anti-money-laundering (AML) regulations.
In 2021, LANDE announced a merger with the agricultural crowdfunding platform LendSecured, becoming a full-service platform for agricultural financing and crowdfunding. The platform has thus far operated in the Baltics and has issued over €4.5M in loans to date, with €3M in loans issued in 2022 and the predicted financing volume to reach €15M in 2023. Altogether, LANDE has provided financing to 300+ local farmers.