Due to the large number of different regulations in relation to the provision of services there is no harmonised definition spanning all the legal acts of what constitutes a crowdfunding service. It is generally understood to mean that parties (project owners) looking for financing collect financial means through a brokering platform from a broad public group of investors. However, there are also models that exist that do not use a platform; however, they are not the subject matter for this page.<\/p>
There is a national regime<\/strong> under the Alternative Financing Act (AltFG; Alternativfinanzierungsgesetz<\/a>) and a European regime <\/strong> under Regulation (EU) 2020\/1503 on European crowdfunding service providers (ECSPR<\/a>) for crowdfunding. The European Regulation has applied since 10.11.2021. For the first time, there is now also a harmonised regulatory framework for the entire EU. The authorisation under the ECSPR stipulates a maximum financing volume of EUR 5 million per project owner and per year. The authorisation under the ECSPR does not apply above this threshold!<\/strong> The national regulations in the AltFG remain primarily predominantly interesting for local platforms that do not offer any transferable securities.<\/p> Two basic questions arise prior to starting a crowdfunding business model or investing on a crowdfunding platform:<\/p> The obligation to have an authorisation depends on the type of the investment on the one hand (security, investments, loans, other) and the precise activity as well as financing volume.<\/p> That depends on the type of the investment, the volume of the issuance and on potential exceptions.<\/p> To simplify, there are three ways of operating a crowdfunding platform<\/strong>:<\/p>