October has retail and institutional investors.
Institutional investors and the management of October invest in the October fund, that finances at least 51% of most October loans and whatever is left after retail investors made an investment.
October relies on a unique investment model to offer companies financing up to 5,000,000€.
Two types of lenders finance projects together
There are two types of October lenders:
Retail lenders who lend between €20 and €2,000 to the projects of their choice.
Institutional investors (asset managers, private banks, family offices, insurers, professional investors), who are committed to lend to all projects through the October Fund or the October Italy Fund.
Most October projects are financed jointly by retail and institutional lenders. For these projects, the October investment Fund automatically finances 51% of the loan amount and the other 49% is offered to retail lenders for a defined period of time. If they do not fully finance the remaining 49%, the fund completes the remain loan amount to 100%. What are the advantages of this hybrid investment model? Make sure borrowers obtain their financing and avoid uncertainty among lenders regarding the immobilisation of their funds.
We call this model Hybrid because two types of lenders co exist on the platform.
In some cases, projects are restricted to institutional investors.
This is the case, for example, with certain Italian projects that can only receive full state guarantees if they are fully financed by institutional investors.
How do you determine who finance a project?
There is no cherry picking the projects. The source of funding is determined automatically based on objective conditions:
If the project can only be funded by a type of investors fo regulatory reasons
If the project doesn't fit pre-determined criteria chosen by investors when they committed money to be used for loans on October (for example in terms of size, geography, sector, rating or underwriting method)
If offering the projects to other types of investors would be detrimental to some, for example if offering projects to retail prevents institutions from benefitting from the full state guarantee, as happens in Italy
The information regarding which investors finance the project is displayed on the project description.
The Retail Lenders
The retail lenders lend on the platform for mainly 3 reasons: to diversify their portfolio, to improve the rate of return on their savings and to support the real economy.
As of 2021, the community of retail lenders on October currently counts 24,000 active lenders. On average, these lenders lent €88 per project and have a portfolio of €3,600.
The best compliment for us is to be recommended. So far, a quarter of the retail lenders who registered on October came recommended by a friend already active on the platform and we are grateful for it. If you are a lender, you can spread the word by sending your invitation code.
The investors of the October Fund
Public institutional investors: their mission is to facilitate access to fundings for SMEs. The European Investment Fund is our main institutional investors.
Private institutional investors: insurance companies, banks, family offices or high net worth individuals (HNWI) also take part in the fund. They invest in business projects to diversify their assets and improve their yield. Wormser Frères Bank, Decaux Frères Investissement and Groupama are among our first supports for example.
October managers: they invest automatically in all the projects published on October without choosing the amount lent to each project to align their interest with yours and those of the Investors of the fund.
Can individual lenders be part of the fund?
Our funds are restricted to professional investors and the minimum ticket to invest in the October fund is 100.000€. If you would like more information about the criteria to be considered professional investors, please reach out to our Institutional Relations team at [email protected].