Dear community,
It’s late February 2024 already. These first two months of the year were as hectic as ever, flying by really fast. I’m not proud of that, though. Rushing through life and business always comes with consequences. The worst part is I’ve been there and done that. But it occasionally comes back. When it does, I try to stick to a sentence that both my father and my co-founder Manuel love (because it applies respectively to racing and sales):
“If everything feels under control, you’re not going fast enough.”
Of course, it is not sustainable, and no one can endure it for a long time. A good example of that is that I’ve written this email in 6 different places, including two events and three different aeroplanes 😅✈️ (flights are the “guiltiest” part of my professional life and I try to minimize them as much as I can, but can’t really avoid them).
A lookback at 2023 💫
As you might have noticed, if you followed us in 2023, it was a year of several “highs” and a few “lows”. We had some impressive months in investment volume, significant impact and beautiful stories, but also the appearance and rise of projects in arrears, alongside a few months with some project scarcity.
Despite the challenging context, we achieved good results with more than 1M€ invested per month and a total of 97 projects funded in 9 countries.
December was the year’s silver lining, with 1,5M€ invested through the platform, an encouraging reduction in arrears and a project funded in a new country: welcome, Dominican Republic!
Our success, and that of your investments, is also made of the achievements you make possible. 2023 was also the year when:
💡 The citizens of Villavicencio (CO) gained a new energy-efficient and intelligent public lighting system using LIC’s technology. And safer streets to walk;
🍹MAI Kombucha moved to new facilities and tripled its production capacity;
🛒 Gasshô added an organic cafeteria to its biological supermarket in Setúbal;
☕Café Joyeux, inclusion pioneers, launched its coffee pods, an impressive social innovation that will be key to the project’s long-term sustainability;
☀️ Cleanwatts started 105 renewable energy communities, and SOLCOR connected 100 solar power plants to the grid 😮
🤖 Earth Rover’s robot was featured in a CNN documentary about how we’ll eat in 2050.
2023 was a year full of insights, really many, but if I have to pick one, I choose to stay on the bright side and share a positive one:
As I turned my attention to project acquisition on the final quarter of the year, what struck me the most was to realize that there are so many people trying to do things the right way. It’s not just about doing something new — don’t get me wrong, of course that’s important — it’s also about doing what we already do, sustainably.
A lesson in my kid’s classroom 🏫
I rarely talk about my children here, but this time I will. I volunteered to give a presentation to my older son’s class (Diego, 11y) about renewable energy and climate change, and I loved it. The kids were really interventive, and it was good to see that a few of them already had some sustainability concepts quite ingrained.
More importantly, in the following days, some of the other parents gave me very positive feedback about their children starting a conversation about renewables or climate at dinner time that day. 💓
This was a reminder of why we really need to “invest” in children and why Goparity will also do so this year.
What to expect from Goparity in 2024
🗺️ We will continue to finance projects in Europe, but you can expect more projects from different parts of the world to show up on the platform;
🍼 Accounts for children will finally become a reality;
📈 The new financial area is finally available on the app;
🆕 We’ll be diversifying the ways you invest with Goparity. Watch out for news!
🤔 Will it be the year of Goparity’s debit card and premium accounts?
What’s going on in arrears❓
As promised, this is the section of my email dedicated to debt recovery and management of arrears.
Our current rate of Non-Performing Loans (NPL) > 90 days is at 10,9%, whereas NPL < 90 days is at 1,1%.
During the past quarter (Q4) we were able to regularize 13 loans in arrears and conclude 6 debt restructurings. We also prevented more than 10 projects entering into arrears with early warnings.
The highlight of the month was definitely the resolution of our most significant loan in arrears. A long and intense negotiation and judicial process — in which we represented all of Goparity’s lenders — resulted in a plan to keep the borrower company operating and to pay back ALL debt to Goparity’s investors plus interest (unlike what happened to most other creditors who had a haircut of 70% on their debt). This will have a huge impact in reducing our NPL > 90 days.
📃 This was a very important milestone and validation of our legal structure.
Questions for you 👇
As you probably know by now, I like asking you questions and getting your feedback. It helps us prioritize, improve, and focus more on planning our next steps and addressing current issues.
The last time I wrote to you, the question was fundamental: we asked you to prioritize Goparity’s future features. Here’s how that turned out:
I must confess the results were a bit surprising; we’re still digesting them. On a personal note, I was kind of rooting for the “Green Bank” debit card option.
This time, I want to give the team the opportunity to ask you a question. I asked them what they’d ask if they could ask a question to our entire community. Many good questions arose. Here is the one I chose for now, by Francisco Taveira:
On a scale of 1 to 10, regarding your priorities when investing with Goparity, where do you place yourself, where 1 — My one and only driver is the financial return, and 10 — I only care about the impact, no matter the return.
You can head to our newsletter in your email to reply to this survey!
Hiring 👋
Before saying goodbye, I’d like to call your attention to our currently open vacancies. Please check them out and feel free to apply or share if you think you have a fit or know someone who does.
📞 Junior Customer Success Manager
👩💻 Full Stack Engineer
⚖️ Junior Legal Counsel
Nuno Brito Jorge
Founder and CEO
