The market of the crowdfunding in Spain is one of the most dynamic and mature in Southern Europe, along with France. In Spain even more than in other countries, the predominance of real estate crowdfunding is clear, with many specialized platforms now working both within the national borders and abroad.

The tightening of access to bank credit over the past decade has fostered the development of crowdfunding in this country, where there is only a slight, for now, decline that the latest report from the Milan Polytechnic showed for Italy.

Spanish operators show good openness to technological innovation, with some experimentation in tokenization to be watched closely.

In this article, as done for France e United States, we tell crowdfunding in Spain from its origins to the present day, analyzing numbers, actors and trends.

A little history: the origins of crowdfunding in Spain

The crowdfunding in Spain began to develop in the early 2010s, initially outside of a dedicated regulatory framework, as in the rest of Europe. The first major platforms emerged in 2010 in the donation and reward spheres: this root is also common, not only in Europe, but also in the United States, because these are the simplest modes of fundraising, which do not need specific regulation.

In the early years, the ecosystem grew rapidly in terms of the number of platforms and projects funded: already in 2014 Spain had about 50 active platforms, with a +114% increase in volumes raised compared to the previous year. However, at this early stage there was still a lack of specific regulation for investment platforms, which limited equity and lending crowdfunding initiatives.

A major turning point came with the First crowdfunding legislation in Spain. On February 28, 2014, the government presented an ad hoc bill, resulting in the approval of the Ley de Fomento de la Financiación Empresarial. This law - which came into effect in mid-2015 - established the Plataformas de Financiación Participativa (PFP) as online financial disintermediation tools under the supervision of the Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV), outlining Precise rules for equity crowdfunding and lending (while leaving donation and reward platforms out of the authorization requirement). 

From a market perspective, the enactment of the law in 2015 gave impetus to the emergence of new crowdinvesting platforms and instilled confidence in investors, fostering growth in the sector. As early as 2016, the first major success stories were recorded, with a sharp increase in volumes in some segments-as of now, for example, the real estate crowdfunding, which just from 2016-2017 began to expand rapidly through platforms dedicated exclusively to real estate.

In the following years, the Spanish crowdfunding market continued to grow and mature. By 2018-2019, there were about 40 operational platforms for equity and lending alone, a sign that the sector had achieved some structural stability. During this period, theAsociación Española de Crowdfunding, which brings together dozens of platforms and has promoted a code of best practices to protect investors and bidding companies. 

From the technological point of view, two factors have favored the spread of crowdfunding in Spain during the 2010s: improvements in the security of online payments and the boom in social media, which made it possible to reach and engage large communities of users via the Internet. 

Some market milestones mark the recent timeline. In 2019, the real estate crowdfunding in Spain reached about 40 million raised in one year for the first time, a level never before reached in that segment. The following year, 2020, saw a temporary slowdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but the slowdown was short-lived. Already in 2021 the market returned to vigorous expansion (propelled again by real estate and equity), and in 2022 it made a real leap in scale thanks in part to European regulatory standardization. 

Crowdfunding regulation in Spain before the ECSP regulation

As we explained in the previous section, in Spain, crowdfunding regulations prior to the entry into force of the ECSP regulation Was based on Ley 5/2015.

The audience was divided into investors acreditados (professional) and no acreditatos (retail or non-professional): this subdivision anticipated that of the current European regulation into sophisticated and unsophisticated investors.

The initial regulations set a limit of €2 million per year for raising funds, extendable to €5 million only in the case of offerings aimed only at accredited investors. From an investor protection perspective, the law stipulated the need to protect users through restrictions on investment caps to limit risk exposure: non-professional investors could invest a maximum of €3,000 per individual project and no more than €10,000 per year per platform

The collection caps, particularly the 2 million limit for public offerings, limited the ability of platforms to finance SMEs which required larger amounts of capital for more advanced stages of growth: consider that in Italy the limit before the ECSP regulation was up to 8 million euros per year.

The law Crea y Crece in 2022 has ECSP regulation transposed in Spain and introduced the wording PSFP (Proveedor de Servicios de Financiación Participativa) to replace that PFP.

Spanish platforms

In Spain, as in many countries, the selective process for the new authorization to operate with a European passport under the ECSP regulation acted as quality filter: only players with adequate governance and risk management structures and sufficient financial strength remained in the market.

In 2022, there were 43 active platforms. Today, are 27 the authorized platforms, which stood out for their speed of adjustment compared to, for example, Italian platforms. 

Let's look at a list of the most well-known ones:

• Urbanitae (real estate)
• Housers (real estate)
• Civislend (real estate)
• Dozen (equity)
• Fellow Funders (equity)
• Capital Cell (equity bio&healthtech)
• MyTripleA (lending)
• Colectual (lending)
• EvenFi (equity and lending, based in Italy).

In Spain, the vertical specialization of platforms on individual economic sectors: this choice proves successful because on the one hand it attracts bidding companies with clear needs, and on the other it offers investors a more focused curatorship of opportunities, strengthening the perceived reliability of bids.

The size of the crowdfunding market in Spain

In Spain, the crowdfunding sector that raises the most capital is real estate both lending and equity. I most up-to-date data available are those of 2023, but unfortunately for real estate they are not broken down by type of collection (equity or lending).

After the approximately 200 million collection in 2019, which remained stable or declined slightly during the pandemic, in 2023 the Spanish crowdfunding market has reached a total of about 380 million euros, up +26% from 2022. Of this total, as much as 58% came from real estate crowdfunding alone, which raised about 220 million in 2023. 

The real estate crowdfunding in Spain, moreover, continues to grow at rates above +50% annually.

Annual generalist equity inflows increased from about 6 million in 2016 to more than 77 million in 2022, an increase of +1168% in six years, but there is a slight decline in 2023 (about -7%). In parallel The average collection volume of the campaigns has grown: this reflects the fact that campaigns are on average larger and there is a greater selection of projects by platforms, a sign of market maturity. Also corroborating this impression is the fact that the total number of campaigns, on the other hand, has decreased : platforms are proposing less projects but more solid, and investors commit larger sums per campaign.

Generalist lending crowdfunding has also been declining in Spain in recent years because it is being squeezed by real estate lending campaigns.

The reward crowdfunding, finally, in 2023 raised approximately €25.4 million (in line with the previous year). 

This breakdown highlights the strong weight of the real estate lending sector in the Spanish landscape, followed by equity, while reward and donation remain smaller but still active segments.

No official and final data on 2024 are yet available, but trends indicate a further jump in the market. Specifically, real estate crowdfunding continues its explosive growth: Between January and August 2024, the volume funded in real estate crowdfunding in Spain increased by 71% year-on-year. The forecast is for a total collection of 400 million by 2024 : to get an order of magnitude, Italy in the same year raised about 260 million euros.

Bidders and investors

Le bidding companies in Spanish crowdfunding are mostly Early stage startups in the equity segment and established SMEs in the lending segment. In equity crowdfunding, highly innovative sectors (biotech, energy, mobility) prevail, while in lending crowdfunding there is a high presence of the agribusiness, energy and manufacturing sectors, as well as real estate, of course.

The crowdfunding investors in Spain are predominantly non-professional. The typical profile is that of a male investor, aged 36 to 55, with medium to high education. However, investors in younger age groups and among women are on the rise. The highest geographic concentration of investors is in the Madrid capital region and Catalonia, covering over 50% of volumes. An interesting fact (taken from a survey by the Spanish platform Colectual) is that more than half of investors use more than one platform, among those making recurring investments (in lending crowdfunding).

Trends and prospects for the future of crowdfunding in Spain

Spain is aiming for a run to come close to France's significant collection volumes and seems to have all the cards on the table at the moment to exceed 500 million in annual collections.

The trends we can currently identify in the spanish crowdfunding market and who will shape the future of alternative finance in this country are:

• Continuous verticalization of platforms
• Mergers, acquisitions and partnerships between players 
• Strengthening the selection of projects
• Integration with traditional finance players (banks, funds, etc.).
• Internationalization
• Integration of blockchain technology into crowdfunding operations
• Growth of experimentation in tokenization.