Introduction to Crowdlending

Preamble

Kia ora,

Welcome to PledgeMe’s handy guide on crowdlending campaigns.

We’re really excited you are considering going out to your crowd for a loan. You’re definitely in the right place. This guide will help explain the ins and outs of what you need to get ready, and answer any manner of questions you may have. PledgeMe is here to help. We’re pretty good at it, too.

We have already helped hundreds of PledgeMe.Projects and PledgeMe.Equity campaigns raise millions of dollars in New Zealand.

We put that experience to work for you in CrowdfundingU, our crash course in running a PledgeMe.Lend campaign. We’ll help you plan and provide feedback on effective pitches, videos, and (almost) anything else you need to make your campaign awesome. We don’t pick and choose who should run a campaign, we let the crowd decide.

So if you’re looking for a loan and have a business plan, financials, and — most importantly — a crowd, then you’re in the right place. PledgeMe’s platform helps you go out to your crowd to grow and meet your business goals. Because we are regulated by the Financial Markets Authority we have a duty to understand your offer (offer = what investment folk call a campaign) and understand your background. Businesses of all sizes can benefit from borrowing and we’ll help you present your offer professionally and transparently to potential lenders.

We hope you find our How to PledgeMe guide helpful and if you have any further questions please get in touch.

— Anna and the PledgeMe team.

What is Crowdlending?

Crowdlending helps Kiwis fund the companies and organisations they care about. PledgeMe.Lend helps organisations harness the power of their crowd and raise capital, without the restrictions, burdens and smoke and mirrors of traditional borrowing. An organisation’s crowd can lend it money and the organisation pays their crowd back with interest. Borrowers can raise up to $2 million in a 12 month period through a licensed platform (like us). The space is regulated by the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) via The Financial Markets Conduct Act 2014 which deals with this type of capital raising.

Is a loan from your crowd for you?

If your organisation is looking to raise capital to grow and thrive then a crowdlending campaign could be for you!

Any suitable organisation — from companies to co-ops, schools to societies — can go out to their crowd of supporters, customers, and networks and ask them to lend some cash.

That loan needs to be for a concrete aim. It might be something as simple as a bridging loan to cover costs or it might be something that will save you money in the long run like upgrading your technology. A discrete bit of work you can clearly articulate to your crowd — what’s the benefit to you, and how you’ll pay them back.

On that note, borrowing with PledgeMe.Lend will only work for organisations which have an ability to show they will be able to pay back the loan to their crowd. Take yourself to our Campaign Readiness Evaluation for Debt (CRED) to see if you’re ready to borrow.

Not to worry if you’re not ready. Take a look at running a project or equity crowdfunding campaign with us instead. We’d be happy to chat with you about how you can use the different PledgeMe options to reach your goals.

💰 Fees

For Borrowers

CrowdfundingU $4,000 + GST for campaigns looking to launch a crowdlending campaign.
(Paid before campaign starts, fees effective 1 December 2020).

Success fee 7.5% of total raised
(zero rated).