Collin Crowdfund

Collin Crowdfund's founder, Jeroen ter Huurne, noticed that many SMEs do not grow optimally due to a lack of financing from traditional banking institutions. On the other hand, many investors are looking for creditworthy investment opportunities with an attractive return — for example, people who want to help a local business or finance young entrepreneurs to realise their dreams. Collin Crowdfund successfully connects these parties.

From the outset, Collin Crowdfund wanted a one-stop-shop application that could handle the back-office processes of credit applications, manage all the necessary bank transactions, connect with the right supervisory and approval bodies, and maintain a high level of security and compliance.

The company looked at various commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software options and a white label version of a major bank's software, but both would have required extensive customisation to meet the requirements. Ter Huurne decided to build a completely new platform.

He chose Mendix low-code development for the speed at which they could come to market. By having the system built by Mendix partner Emixa, Collin Crowdfund could quickly launch the platform — a customised COTS solution would have taken considerably longer.

Before focusing on growing the number of loans, Collin Crowdfund first concentrated on building trust with its customers. The results support that approach: more than €1.2 billion has now been invested for around 3,000 entrepreneurs, and 99.8 per cent of that has been successfully financed.

The Collin Crowdfund platform has more than 55,000 users — mainly investors — and 49 back-office employees. Everyone, from applicant to employee, logs into the same "My Collin" system. The different user groups have different front-ends tailored to their needs.

A credit applicant logs into a specially designed part of the site, where they go through the "customer onboarding" process and their identity is automatically validated by the system. They then submit various basic documents digitally, such as recent annual accounts, tax returns, and an extract from the Chamber of Commerce. The system checks whether all documents are complete and whether various conditions are met. Unlike a bank, which focuses mainly on the figures, a crowdfund coach assesses the creditworthiness of the entrepreneur through a personal interview. If the crowdfund coach gives the green light, the risk coach then makes a thorough risk analysis, recording all results in the platform. The application then goes to the "Green Light Committee", a group of experienced directors with extensive knowledge of corporate financing. Once everything has been approved in the Collin platform, the application receives a Collin Credit Score and is published on Collin's website. From that moment, potential investors can find it and consider investing. Investors receive a notification from the app on their smartphone at 11:00 about new projects — within the investor community, this time has become known as "Collin time".

Building on a low-code platform means that new features can be quickly launched, tested, and refined. Collin Crowdfund continuously develops its platform based on feedback from entrepreneurs, investors, and employees. Innovation is a constant and ensures a modern crowdfunding platform that keeps improving.

Collin Crowdfund has also integrated a payment account function into the software. If an investor opts for this, interest and principal repayments are stored in a personal Collin Crowdfund account, making it easier to invest in new projects without frequent bank transactions.

As crowdfunding becomes more mainstream, Collin Crowdfund wants to stimulate the growth of the industry by white-labelling its application. According to the company, crowdfunding not only offers an interesting return for investors, but can also be a way to support a local business in the region or help develop new products. By offering the platform as a white-label solution, multiple parties can offer this form of financing. Thanks to Mendix and Emixa, it is easy to tailor it to everyone's wishes and requirements.