I love to diversify my investments on as many great platforms as possible. In this article, I will review the crowdlending platform GoParity, which I first heard about in 2022.

GoParity offers a different approach to crowdlending, focusing on promoting sustainable projects and on the impact it has on the local economy. 

I found that this is a really interesting approach, so I really wanted to try out this platform. Let's dive into the review!

What is GoParity?

As for all crowdlending platforms, GoParity is a financial platform that allows investors to fund projects, in exchange of payments of interests over time, as well as the return of the capital at the end of a project. GoParity is based in Lisbon, Portugal, and was founded in 2017.

As I mentioned in the introduction, GoParity is different from other platforms in the field as they focus on offering investors to fund sustainable projects and creating an impact through crowdlending. For example, many projects are focused on avoiding CO2 emissions or creating jobs in the local economy.

GoParity is also a global platform, and they already funded over 200 projects all around the world as shown on this map:

So far they have around 30,000 users, and already funded more than 20 Million Euros worth of projects over the years, so it's definitely not a small platform. 

What returns can I expect from investing on GoParity?

Whereas the actual revenue you can expect on the platform completely depends on which projects you invest in, on average the returns on GoParity are around 5.25% according to their website. This is lower than most platforms in the field, but keep in mind that the platform is not only focused on revenue, but also on creating an impact which explains that the returns are not as high as other platforms.

I could confirm that by looking at their current and past projects, and the majority of them are indeed between 5 and 6% of returns per year, meaning the number they announce on their page seems to be correct.

Is it safe to invest on GoParity?

The question of the safety of the investors funds is central when investing on crowdlending platform, as they will be managing all the money that you deposit on the platform and invest it in the companies that you select. When reviewing a new platform before adding it to my portfolio, I look at three things: what the platform offers in terms of guarantees, the company itself (and their team), and finally how the projects listed on the platform are picked.

Risks & guarantees on GoParity

On GoParity, most of the risk is coming from which projects you will actually invest in, which we will discuss more in details at the end of this section.

GoParity itself is a regulated company and has been supervised since 2017 by the CMVM, which is the Portuguese Securities Market Commission. They are also using MangoPay to handle all the cashflow on the platform during the investment process, which is a very well known company in the field that many other platforms use.

They also have a strict KYC process that we'll cover more in details when we will talk about how to open an account & start investing on the platform.

Finally, they also have an European crowdfunding service provider license that they received in 2022, which is also a very good sign.

The company & the team

GoParity is a company operating from Lisbon, Portugal. As for all platforms as I invest on, I checked that they are actually registered in that country, and they are.

They also are completely transparent about their team on their website, with a complete description of the role of each person in the team, which is also something I appreciate seeing on a platform. 

I for example checked the profile of the co-founder and CEO of the company, Nuno Brito Jorge:

As you can see, he definitely has a strong experience in the field, both in the crowdlending space and also in the field of renewable energy & sustainable projects.

Therefore, it's safe to say that the company is definitely ran by people with a strong experience in the field.

Funded Projects

When I invest on a platform, I always have a very close look at where the projects that people can invest in are coming from, as most of the risks will come from here. 

In the case of GoParity, you basically invest in loans that will fund a sustainable project. The interests of the loans are calculated by their team so that the project is actually financially viable. For each project, you will then find a description of how the interests on the loan will be paid back, and the team at GoParity of course rejects all projects that wouldn't be financially viable.

On top of that, they apply another round of checks to decide if the project is impactful or not. For that, they check that the project contribute to achieve at least one of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For example in this list you will find ending poverty, ensure that water is available for everyone, or also take action to combat climat change.

Therefore, all those points combined makes it much safer to invest on GoParity than on other similar crowdlending platforms.

Getting started with GoParity

Let's now see how to get started with GoParity & start investing on the platform.

The first step is to open an account and get verified:

This was done relatively quickly, and it was all done within 5 minutes including the KYC part, which simply included the uploading of one piece of identification like a passport.

Next, you will have to deposit funds in your account to start investing in projects on GoParity. That is also easy to do as well, with a simple bank transfer or via a card payment, which is a nice option to have as you can invest directly on the platform:

When I started to invest on the platform, there was only two projects available on GoParity, as they tend to be funded quickly. To learn more about a project, simply click on it:

You will then be able to access much more information about the project, and also about the financial plan of the project. Here for example, the first project I invested on GoParity was a project about installing LED lighting in Latin America:

As it's the core of the platform, you can of course see the impact that your investment will have, including which of the 17 goals that I mentioned earlier it will fulfil:

Then, once you want to invest, simply enter how much you want to invest, and validate your investment. It's also important to notice that the platform does not have access to the transferred funds - they are kept in a dedicated MongoPay account. Then, only once the project owner actually put the shares to your name the money will be transferred to the funded company bank account.

Note that you can invest from just 5 Euros, which is really low for such a platform and allows you to really get a diversified portfolio on the platform.

At the moment, GoParity does not offer a secondary market. The platform also does not offer an auto-invest feature, but this is something that would not make much sense on such a platform anyway as you usually want to pick the projects that you will become a part of.

My Own Returns with GoParity

Having discovered the platform only in early 2023, it's of course way too soon to speak about my own returns with the platform. However, I will definitely invest in more projects as they become available, and I will of course update this article accordingly.