The Estonian property lending platform Estateguru is gearing up to enter the German market, laying the groundwork for this through its partnership with Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) provider Raisin Bank.
The alternative property lender and Frankfurt-based Raisin Bank, a BaaS provider wholly owned by the fintech Raisin, have signed a fronting service contract that empowers Raisin Bank to provide services to Estateguru’s German borrowers.
“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,” comments Marek Pärtel, Co-founder and Chairman of Estateguru.
“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.”
Estateguru has every reason to retain its positivity towards the german market. Many of the lender’s earlier crowdfunding campaigns saw many of the biggest equity investors coming from Germany.
“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,” continues Pärtel.
“As Germany has the biggest real estate market in Europe, we see plenty of room there for providing flexible alternative financing opportunities to SMEs.”
The lender has appointed Björn Kombächer, former head of the Alternative Asset team at the German bank Donner & Reuschel, as its new Country Head for Germany. Estateguru has also established an office in Berlin to oversee loan management and application.
“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,” commentsKombächer.
Dr. Andreas Wolf, Chief Commercial Officer at Raisin Bank, adds: “As an emerging proptech start-up with a strong value proposition, Estateguru is an exciting partner for our BaaS offering 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.”
