EstateGuru partners with fintech ahead of German launch
EstateGuru has partnered with Frankfurt-based banking-as-a-service provider Raisin Bank to prepare for its launch in Germany.
The bank will provide services to the peer-to-peer lending platform’s German borrowers.
Marek Pärtel, co-founder and chairman of EstateGuru, said the platform has established a strong local team and an office in Berlin, headed by Björn Kombächer, for handling the “significant loan volumes” that it is aiming to finance together with Raisin Bank.
The platform aims to finance €215m (£179m) of loans in Germany this year.
Pärtel said that the team is confident that Germany will become its biggest market.
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“Germany is the key market for the EstateGuru Group in our long-term expansion strategy and the cooperation with Raisin Bank in Germany opens a huge opportunity for us,” said Pärtel.
“Now that we have a fronting service partner in place, we are confident that Germany will be our biggest market, even after expanding to the UK, the Netherlands, Italy and France during this and next year.
“Germans seem to be passionate about the secured lending product. During campaigns on the Seedrs platform in 2020 and 2021, the biggest number of our equity investors were from Germany, and the German retail investor community was also the fastest growing group long before Germany was in the pipeline.
“As Germany has the biggest real estate market in Europe, we see plenty of room there for providing flexible alternative financing opportunities to small- and medium-sized enterprises.
“We have established a strong local team and an office in Berlin for handling the significant loan volumes that we are aiming to finance together with Raisin Bank.
“The team will be led by very experienced financing and investment expert Björn Kombächer as our country head for Germany. I`m very excited to see what Björn and his team will manage to deliver in terms of our ambitions in Germany.”
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“I really believe that my long-term experience with institutional clients is a perfect match for EstateGuru’s ambitions and roadmap here in Germany,” Kombächer said.
“As the biggest funding volumes in the long-term strategy of EstateGuru will come from different types of institutional investors (banks, investment funds and family offices), I see that my know-how and network in this field will help to facilitate the growth.
“I am excited and honoured to join the team and take part in the mission of EstateGuru to make real estate financing and investing attainable for anyone, anywhere in the world.”
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“As an emerging proptech start-up with a strong value proposition, EstateGuru is an exciting partner for our banking-as-a-service offering at Raisin Bank,” said Dr. Andreas Wolf, chief commercial officer at Raisin Bank.
“EstateGuru’s and Raisin Bank’s capabilities complement each other well. We are connected by modern services and technologies that enable us to digitally implement loan appraisal and origination within the shortest possible time.
“As a fronting bank, we will significantly accelerate EstateGuru’s growth in the German market and effectively enable platform-based real estate financing.”