How we got 4 million euros in 6 months.
Wanna hear the best part of the story from the very start? We, EstateGuru, were not raising it for ourselves — we were doing it for real estate developers. Those that were looking for quick and hassle-free option for raising capital for any of their projects. Vetted ones, of course.
These days, in an ICO world, this becomes — well, either a rarity or a norm. Telling your story, raising millions (we’re only at 4 but that’s in one of the countries — overall it’s more than 44 million). However, in our case it’s millions that’ll come back to investors. With profit. Guaranteed.
6 months & new countries
In six months we’ve financed more than 4 million euros worth of real estate development projects with an average loan size of 271.000 euros (up from 154.000 euros in Estonia and 145.000 euros in Latvia). Also, we were the ones that had a biggest* loan on the platform during all of its existence: 1.2 million. Of course, it might be a price of one mid-level condo in New York City but hey — we operate different numbers here and we kick a**. Lithuania is the country I’m talking about.
- Recently we’ve opened one more country — Finland — with the first loan there: 1.6M euros.
- More recently — at the time of updating the post it was yesterday — we’ve opened our 5th market — Spain.
Real estate crowdfunding is hard. But don’t get me wrong here — it’s exciting, too. For the last 6 months I’ve been actively involved in a variety of processes related to it: overseeing EstateGuru’s business development and marketing in Lithuania.
You’re probably wondering how was it? How it all started and how the hell did we managed to reach the numbers previously unseen to others with an offer that was also new to the market: real estate crowdfunding.
On a bright and early Thursday morning together with my to-be colleague Arturas Konusevicius we boarded a plane in Vilnius and in almost no time landed in Tallinn. Estonian capital that we all Lithuanians think of as Scandinavian (due to being close to Scandinavia & some others touristic and business related reasons). Skype, Pipedrive, TransferWise are its main superstars, its unicorns widely known around the world. On a more recent note — when watching a mega-popular TV series called Billions there’s a scene where it is mentioned that main character — billionaire hedge fund owner Bobby Axelrod — purchased his mega-yacht in Estonia. The Good Life. That was the name of a yacht. Not a bad product placement for a country, I’d say.
EstateGuru originates from Estonia, too. Now it’s operating in three Baltic countries (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) as well as Finland and Spain. During a period of short 3 years we’ve financed more than 44M euros worth of real estate development projects. All with the help of more than 10.000 investors from 45 countries worldwide.
But let me get back to Lithuania.
We’ve visited EstateGuru’s HQ in lovely Tallinn, spent a few intence (strategy, meetings, planning, etc.) but also exciting (beer pong, anyone?) days, went back to Tallinn’s airport (which is located IN the city itself — so convenient!) and flew back to Vilnius to start a new journey. A new journey for EstateGuru (that’s been operating for 3 years in Estonia, half a year in Latvia back then and was about to make its first steps in Lithuania), a new journey for our professional lives with Arturas, a new chapter for real estate development projects in Lithuania. There were investors backing Estonian & Latvian real estate projects, we were on a mission to find and present them Lithuanian ones.
Fast forward six months and I’ve got WAY more things to say about “how was it?!”
It was — and still is — an exciting journey, an interesting experience and, of course, a big help for both real estate developers and investors. Borrowers needs money to move further, investors wants to put their money somewhere safe, get attractive (!) return and don’t have a headache. And that’s where we come in. See for yourself.
But let’s get back to those 4 million euros as I have no doubts that’s what makes this headline stand out. But don’t get me wrong here — I chose to include that number not only for the purpose of grabbing your attention (even tho that purpose needs to be served, too). No. I chose it deliberately and based on certain criteria: those in the business (especially in real estate investing, crowdfunding) will understand that the number is something to achieve, those in the business in general might appreciate us, two young & handsome gentlemen for doing what we do best. Developing the business, checking real estate projects and properties itself for being healthy enough to invest in, talking about the market in general without too much focus on solely us as a company, as a brand. However — here we are.
All of you probably know that one cannot start without having certain numbers set and we were not an exclusion. But let me talk about the numbers we achieved instead of numbers set (and for the curious as well as skeptical ones — we’ve overdelivered).
In 6 months we’ve financed close to 4 millions (3.919.206 — to be more precise) euros worth of projects. Compared to 2.2M in Latvia & 17M in Estonia. I take it as not bad due to several reasons:
a) the country is quite small,
b) we’ve just started with a newly-opened “branch” of EstateGuru,
c) two simple fellahs just doing what they love the most — hustling in real estate field. Ok, in finance, too.
However, some of you closely following what I’m telling here might still have a question. A question that actually IS in the headline: how?!
These days it’s all innovations, tools, tech solutions, app for this or app for that. Emails. Phone calls. Skype calls. Messages. Facebook. Linkedin. Reminders. Follow ups (a King of sales, as Gary Vaynerchuk likes to put it). But. There’s one thing or, actually, a few things that relates to a good old — again — thing: human interaction. Contacts. Networking. Being nice to people. Having your own point of view. That’s my “how”.
Are you related to real estate? Investing? Financial technologies? Business in general? Let’s have a chat!
You can find me on most of the social media channels: facebook, instagram, linkedin. Email works, too: tomasgrizas at gmail dot com
