HeavyFinance Review 2024: High Returns with Agricultural Investments

I love to diversify my crowdlending investments on as many great platforms as possible. In this article, I will review the crowdlending platform HeavyFinance, which I added to my portfolio in 2023.

In the article, I will tell you what I think are the biggest strengths (and weaknesses) of the platform, how to start using it, and what you can expect from investing on the platform. Let's start!

What is HeavyFinance?

As for all crowdlending platforms, HeavyFinance is a financial platform that matches borrowers with investors, that will lend money on the platform in exchange of interests on loans. HeavyFinance is a relatively new platform, as it was founded in 2020. They are based in Vilnius, Lithuania.

What makes them different from other similar platforms is that they offer investors to invest in agricultural projects in the EU - like financing harvests for example, or making loans to farmers directly. This is something that is quite rare in the field of crowdlending, and I believe it makes it really interesting. 

It is also quite interesting financially compared to other similar platforms - with loans having higher returns and lower LTVs compared to real estate projects for example.

They currently have nearly 10,000 investors, and over 40 Millions Euros already invested on the platform.

What returns can I expect from investing on HeavyFinance?

The returns you can expect on HeavyFinance completely depend on which projects you invest in, which I will tell you more about when we'll see how to use the platform. 

Currently, you can get up to 14-15% returns on the platform, and they advertise an average annual return of 13.5% for investors, which is of course something I'll verify on the platform.

Is it safe to invest on HeavyFinance?

The question of the safety of the investors funds is central when investing on a crowdlending platform, as they will be managing all the money that you deposit on the platform and invest it in the projects. When checking a new platform, I look at three things: what the platforms offers in terms of guarantees, the company itself (and their team), and finally the originators of the projects present on the platform.

Risks & guarantees on HeavyFinance

On HeavyFinance, most projects present on the platform are backed by assets, that will be taken in case there is a problem with the project. This can be a mortgage on land or a property, for example.

They also only put projects with low LTVs (Loan To Value) on the platform, meaning that the amount of the loan of a given project is always much lower than the value of the asset attached to the project. This means that in case of a problem with a project, the asset that will be sold to cover the loan will be more than enough to give the money back to investors & to cover all the legal costs associated with the sale. Most projects have LTVs around 50%, which is quite low compared to real estate projects for example.

It's worth noting that they got the European ECSP license in 2023, meaning they are now fully regulated under EU law and have to follow strict rules to protect investors money.

They also do a very strict process of cherry-picking the best projects that they put on the platform.

They also have a risk rating score that they apply to every project, which is quite nice to instantly see the level of risk of each project.

The company & the team

As I mentioned earlier, the company is operating from Lithuania, and as for all platforms I add to my portfolio I checked if the company was officially registered in Lithuania, and it indeed.

They also are completely transparent about their management team on their website, as well as for their main investors, which is also something I appreciate seeing on a platform.

I also check the profile of their CEO, Laimonas Noreika, and his LinkedIn page shows he has experience in the P2P lending field for over 8 years, having been the founder of the platform FinBee.

So overall, definitely an experienced team of professionals running the platform.

Projects originators

I also always have a close look at where the projects on the platform are coming from, as this is usually where a platform will start to have issues if anything bad happens like a financial crisis. 

What I like on HeavyFinance is that there are completely transparent about who the borrower is for each project, and it is really easy to find what the loan will be used for, and what are the collaterals attached to each loan.

Getting started with HeavyFinance

It is actually really easy to get started with HeavyFinance and have your money start generating interests on the platform.

The first step is to open an account and get verified. This was done really quickly, and including the ID verification part it was all done in under 5 minutes.

Next, you will have to deposit funds in your account to start investing in loans and generate interests. This is also really to do with HeavyFinance, as you can do it via a bank transfer.

Once this is done, you can actually start investing in loans on the platform. For that, the first option is to check the primary market:

From there, you can immediately see what projects are currently available, and get some details about the loans like the annual return, LTV, and term. Note that the minimum investment amount is 100 Euros, which is in the usual range for similar platforms.

If you want more details, you can simply click on the projects you want to get more information about it:

On those pages, you will find much more details about the project, like details about the borrower, why the money is needed, and also what additional guarantees are provided.

You can also directly see how much you will get depending on how much you invest in each project:

Note they also have an auto-invest function, which makes it really easy to automate your investments on the platform.

As for all the platforms I review, I also tried to withdraw money, and the money was back on my account in just 2 days.

My Results so far with HeavyFinance

I only invested in one agricultural project so far on HeavyFinance, and it should give me a return of 14% annually. It is of course too early to talk about long-term yields on the platform, but I can say that so far everything went smoothly and I will definitely invest more on the platform in the future.

Should you Invest on HeavyFinance?

I can definitely say that I like the HeavyFinance platform. It allows access to the agricultural field, which is not something many platforms do. As an investor, this mean higher returns and lower LTVs, meaning more profits with less risks. I also like the fact the platform has the European ECSP license, and that it's run by a team of professionals. Definitely a solid crowdlending platform to consider for your portfolio.