Italian crowdinvesting slows down, funding still down 14%

The crowdinvesting market continues to contract. Once the boom years ended, the last 12 months - from July 2024 to June 2025 and with greater evidence since January - saw a new decline of 14%. The negative sign characterises almost all segments and adds to the decline (-5.3%) of the previous year. Collections amounted to €260.65 million, bringing the total cumulative value since crowdinvesting has existed in Italy to approximately €1.57 billion. The number of authorised platforms, however, is on the rise: in June there were 42 (a figure that is second only to France in the European Union) compared to 33 in 2024, a sign that we are adjusting to the new European authorisation process, which is now fully operational. These are the main findings of the tenth Italian Report on Crowdinvesting, produced by the Observatory of the same name of the School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano. "Ten years after the launch of the first platforms, we are in a moment of difficulty in the national market for financial investments channelled through crowdfunding platforms, with no recovery in sight on the horizon," confirms Giancarlo Giudici, Director of the Observatory. There are many reasons for this: the rise in interest rates, the uncertainty on global markets that has prompted a preference for very liquid and less risky asset classes, the new ECSP regulation that has led to a 'selection' in the number of authorised platforms and for some players a forced stop to fundraising, and perhaps even a certain disappointment for investments that have not yielded the hoped-for results. But this is not enough to explain the phenomenon'.

The Crowdinvesting Observatory studies that subset of crowdfunding that allows individuals and institutional and professional investors to directly join, through an enabling Internet platform, an appeal to raise resources for an entrepreneurial project, either by granting a loan (lending-based model) or by underwriting shares of the company's venture capital (equity-based model). While not forgetting other forms of crowdfunding, crowdinvesting is an attractive opportunity both for entrepreneurs wishing to finance their own activities and for investors looking for returns and portfolio diversification opportunities.

According to the European Crowdfunding Service Providers Regulation (ECSP) on European crowdfunding service providers for businesses, as of 30 June 2025, 42 platforms were authorised in Italy, plus one Italian platform authorised in Spain, compared to 33 the previous year, a figure that puts Italy in second place in Europe after France (61 portals).

Over the past 12 months, equity campaigns have raised €110.95m on the market, virtually unchanged from the previous period, bringing total cumulative venture capital inflows to €792.93m. Real estate projects recovered ground (+32%), while non-real estate projects continued to suffer (-19%). New venture capital campaigns totalled 160, stable compared to last year and with a trending success rate that remains high (88%). The share of real estate projects rose to a record 30.6%. The average collection target value for non-real estate projects in the last six months was EUR 207,133, that of real estate projects is EUR 1,112,955. On average, 8.77 per cent of the capital is offered for non-real estate projects and the practice of offering non-voting shares below a certain investment threshold (and voting shares above the threshold) is confirmed, while in the increasingly numerous real estate campaigns, non-voting shares prevail.

Geographically speaking, Lombardy (565 companies, 40.8%) continues to hold sway, followed by Emilia-Romagna (158, 11.4%), Lazio (117, 10.1%), Piedmont (96) and Veneto (84), while in the South Campania is first with 41 broadcasters (3%). Even if we look at the last 12 months and the 141 new broadcasters, the podium is the same - Lombardy with 50 companies (35.7%), Emilia-Romagna with 26 (18.6%), Lazio with 24 (17.1%) - but the South is practically absent, with only 2 cases in Puglia and 1 in Molise. As for the sectors, the most represented continue to be information and communication services.