Stock Estate interview with CEO Vicentiu Vlad
Stock Estate is a newly launched ECSP regulated crowdfunding investment platform from Romania that offer investments in real estate loans. In this interview, you will learn from the CEO Vicentiu Vlad what it means to invest with Stock Estate.
Can you briefly describe Stock Estate?
Stock Estate is a marketplace that connects developers seeking funding with investors—individuals or companies—looking to diversify their investment portfolios. The investor offers a loan to the developer starting from 100 euros and receives a return of up to 20%.
What inspired you to start this company?
Our motivation is connected to our passion for the real estate and financial sectors. As active investors, we realized that a crowdfunding platform could address this funding gap, especially for real estate investors who lack easy access to bank financing.
Therefore, the initiative to launch stock.estate came as a response to market needs, with a strong focus on creating a safe and efficient environment for real estate project financing and providing attractive investment opportunities for investors.
How do you find potential investments?
We are considering strategic partnerships with various investors and real estate developers which will contribute to maintaining sustainable long-term growth and adapting to changes in the field. Of course, we receive a lot of requests for listing different projects. When we select the investment opportunities for stock.estate, we run every offer through a rigorous list of criteria and filters and select the best ones. In this way we want to offer our potential investors the most profitable investment opportunities in real estate, just a click away.
Who is on your team and how did you come together?
We are two founders working on Stock Estate:
- Vicențiu Vlad - CEO - former army officer, with military and diplomatic training. An active real estate investor for over 10 years.
- Alexandru Constantin – CTO - with over 10 years of experience as a software and machine learning engineer. He has been involved in two previous FinTech startups.
Our passion for real estate brought us together around this idea.
How are you regulated and what does that mean to your investors?
Stock Estate is licensed as per the register of crowdfunding service providers of the European Securities and Market Authority (ESMA) as a crowdlending provider. This important step gives investors the trust that we operate in a safe and regulated environment.
How much can an investor make on Stock Estate?
There is no one-size-fits-all answer. It all depends on how much an investor can invest - typically, the more you invest, the higher your earnings will be. In percentage terms, a project in real estate lending crowdfunding can earn you an average annual return between 10% and 20% in Eur.
Do you plan on offering other types of investments on Stock Estate?
We are actively exploring the possibility of expanding our investment offerings on Stock Estate. Currently, our focus lies on introducing equity crowdfunding, which would enable fractional ownership. Additionally, we are looking into including other asset classes such as startup companies. Our aim is to provide a diverse range of investment opportunities that cater to the varying preferences and risk appetites of our users.
What are the key milestones or goals you aim to achieve in the next two years?
Our primary objective over the next two years is to significantly increase the volume of funds raised on our platform. Specifically, we aim to achieve a milestone of raising €1 million per month. To realize this goal, we plan to expand into new markets, including Italy, Spain, and France. By tapping into these regions, we anticipate a surge in user engagement and investment activity, thereby driving the platform towards our ambitious target.