Crowderthe first crowdfunding platform (crowdfunding) for Uruguayan ventures and companies was formally presented yesterday on the 22nd floor of WTC Free Zone and is expected to begin operating at the end of this month.
Collective financing will allow changing the way in which companies and ventures in the world Uruguay are financed, without needing intermediaries such as banks. The new modality also opens up possibilities that did not exist until now for individual investors who seek to capitalize their savings in the local economy.
“Crowder is a management company of a crowdfunding platform and in short it is a small digital stock exchange for companies from Uruguay and Latin America who are seeking financing and who are willing to make a super-simplified public offering of securities by providing investors with shares or negotiable obligations in exchange for financing,” he explained. Guillermo Rodriguezone of the creators of the idea now acting as CEO, to Ambit.
Regarding how it works, the entrepreneur explains that “the platform allows companies that are limited in their turnover to participate (they cannot have invoiced more than 11 billion dollars a year), to issue any investor and invest in it.”
“At the end of the month we will be starting the activities of the platform. The first broadcast is going to be launched, a Uruguayan company in the virtual goal sector. But we have many companies in our portfolio from different industries and activities, real estate, agro-industrial, commercial and services,” adds Rodríguez.
A particularity is that to participate as investors there will be no minimum requirements. “We look for democratize the stock market while we promote it and in that democratization there are no high limits to invest. People will be able to invest with $100, it will be very accessible and that is why we want to reach the public on a massive scale,” explained the CEO of Crowder.
An opportunity to explore
Rodríguez valued for Ámbito the existing opportunity that led this group of entrepreneurs to propose the project, which was incubated by the CIE of the ORT University and obtained financial support from Seed plan of the National Development Agency (ANDE) in 2023 and since January 4 of this year the approval of the Superintendency of Financial Services of the Central Bank of Uruguay (BCU).
“The Uruguayan market is a market in which the corporate financing It is focused on the banking sector. We believe that we must develop the stock market again and when companies begin to see that this is a legitimate, regulated and viable option, they will begin to get quite close,” considered the CEO of Crowder.
“There is a super underdeveloped corporate debt market and there is a world of company share issuance market to explore, which today is non-existent,” concluded the new businessman who is accompanied in the project by a team made up of Andres Picardoas Technology Manager, Estefania Barros as a compliance officer, and Martin Larzaba as director.
Source: Ambito
