Ventus Energy Review 2024: Unique Investment Opportunities in the Energy Sector

I love to diversify my investments on as many great platforms as possible, which is why I continuously review new platforms & share my experiences with those platforms on my site. In this article, I will review the investment platform Ventus Energy, which I discovered 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 Ventus Energy?

Ventus Energy is an energy projects development company focusing on acquiring and building energy infrastructure projects like power plants and solar parks. They attract investments to implement these projects—acquisition and/or building—and offer investors the opportunity to invest only in projects that are 100% owned by Ventus Energy. They are starting by acquiring already built power plants to establish a steady cash flow to pay interest to investors. Following that, they have a development pipeline of new projects, with the first one being a solar park in Kuldiga, for which the first funding round is open.

The group's core business is the acquisition, building, and servicing of power plants and solar parks. The investment platform is just a part of the whole business, providing an avenue for investors to participate in these projects. This approach means that Ventus Energy does not rely on third parties; all projects are owned and managed entirely by the platform.

Ventus Energy acquires or builds assets and manages them. Compare to other platforms that do the same however, Ventus Energy's investment platform is part of the parent company and not allocated to a separate entity. This means that if something happens with the business, Ventus Energy Group, with all its assets, will serve as a guarantee for investments.

What I really like about this platform is that they not only offer high interest rates (up to 20% depending on the projects), but that all projects are completely owned and managed by the platform itself.

I really like this aspect as it means they don't depend on external partners to manage the projects that are on the platform: it's all in-house, and controlled by the platform. We'll of course revisit this aspect more in detail later in the review.

So far, they already have over 500 registered investors, that already invest nearly 2 million Euros on the platform. Already over 100,000 Euros were distributed to investors as interest.

What returns can I expect from investing on Ventus Energy?

The returns you can expect on Ventus Energy are quite attractive, with mezzanine investments offering interest rates around 18-20% annually. The platform offers only mezzanine investments to retail investors through the platform.

For most projects, Ventus Energy secures funding from both senior investors and mezzanine investors. Senior investors, such as institutional investors, banks, or individuals, provide 60-70% of the financing at interest rates of 6-10% p.a. Mezzanine investors, like those investing through the platform, provide the remaining 30-40% at around 20% p.a. By combining both sources of funding, the average interest rate Ventus Energy pays for the whole project is about 9-12% p.a.

This structure allows the platform to offer high yields to mezzanine investors while maintaining a manageable overall cost of capital for their projects. The high returns are possible because the projects are secured by senior financing and are in the regulated electricity sector, with assets like property and physical assets as collateral.

This is definitely above the average of other platforms in the field, and also way above any usual type of investment like a savings account or even dividend-paying stocks.

Of course, reinvesting your profits on the platform will give you a nice compound interest.

Is it safe to invest on Ventus Energy?

The question of the safety of the investors' funds is central when investing on any platform, as the platform will be managing all the money that you deposit on the platform.

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 the sources of the projects present on the platform.

Risks & guarantees on Ventus Energy

Ventus Energy is a relatively new platform, however they already have several things in place to guarantee the safety of investors' money.

First, the type of business that they offer on the platform is fully regulated (electricity sector) and all the projects are secured by property, physical assets, and commercial pledges.

They also already have a track record of operational projects, and are fully transparent about it, which is definitely a good sign for the company, and trust that they will manage well all future projects on the platform.

They also put security as a priority of the platform—having for example a fully automated identity verification process, as well as following all the regulations in terms of GDPR.

The company & the team

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

It was also very easy to find information about their team, which is something I really like to see on such a platform.

As for all the platforms I invest on, I checked the profiles of the management team of the platform to see their experience in the field. Here, I immediately saw a lot of well-known faces, for example their CEO Henrijs Jansons, who was the former CEO of Debitum, a P2P lending platform I also have in my portfolio.

I talked to him many times in the past and I also know he has a very solid profile & track record even before Debitum, so definitely a good profile at the head of the company.

Another key member of the team is Toms Abele, their CMO, who has over 20 years of experience in product development and marketing, and who I also talked with regularly to exchange about investing.

It's also worth mentioning that Janis Timma is part of the team and one of the owners. Janis was the founder of the Crowdestor platform, which doesn't have the best reputation. However, his expertise in the energy sector is significant, having over 12 years of experience, including owning a powerhouse in Riga and serving as the Chairman of the Latvian Cogeneration Stations Association for more than 10 years. In Ventus Energy, Janis's responsibility is business development—cutting deals about powerhouse acquisition and building—while Henrijs is in charge of funding, daily operations, investor relations, and investor funds protection. Responsibilities are strictly divided between team members, bringing an extra level of security.

So, the team comprises experienced professionals with strong backgrounds in the fintech and energy sectors, which is a really good point for this platform.

Projects

I always check where the projects are coming from on a platform, as this is really important for the security of your investments. This is where your money will ultimately go to, so it's critical to make sure a platform is transparent about what are their projects before investing.

In the case of Ventus Energy, as I mentioned earlier, they are completely in control of all the projects you will find on the platform. They carefully select those projects, and then make all the management of the projects as well.

I for sure really like the concept, as it makes sure you won't depend at all on external partners that might give a good impression to the platform, only to let down investors later on.

Ventus Energy focuses on three areas of operations in the electricity sector: heat production and sales, electricity sales, and grid balancing.

The first two projects they launched on the investment platform are the acquisition of two already built powerhouses. One in Riga is fully operational; the moment they acquire it, there will be a stable source of income to pay investors' interest and principal repayments. The Daugavpils powerhouse was built in 2013 and worked for almost 10 years. Now, it has been stopped for some time because the existing owners don't want to manage all operational things. Ventus Energy is running tests right now to ensure the Daugavpils powerhouse engines are in good shape, and they expect to launch full operations in a few months.

These powerhouses will produce heat (with agreements with local municipalities), sell electricity via the leading power market in Europe, Nord Pool, and participate in grid balancing with agreements with the Latvian state company AST.

Getting started with Ventus Energy

It is actually really easy to get started with Ventus Energy and have your money start generating interest 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 10 minutes.

After that, you can start using the platform and deposit money on it via a bank transfer.

Once this is done, you can actually start investing in loans on the platform. The platform does not have an auto-invest function so far, but it is really easy to browse projects on the platform:

I could see here that indeed all loans had returns of 18% annually, which is in line with what was indicated earlier on their main page.

It is also really easy to get information about a given project:

On those details pages you can see all the data needed about a project—like the detailed description of the project, information about cashback offers, and financial information.

You can also get a detailed presentation of the project, pictures, and technical documents.

Note that at the moment, there is a minimum of 1000 Euros to invest in projects. I found that to be a little too high, especially compared to other platforms in the field, but that might change in the future.

The platform doesn't have an auto-invest function, but since there aren't many projects and the projects are long-term, auto-invest is not crucial. Additionally, Ventus Energy offers daily interest payments and an interest compounding feature—unique in the market. This means investors can invest and activate the interest compounding feature, and all daily interest will be automatically reinvested in assets immediately. It's a sort of auto-invest, but with the possibility to earn even more than 18% p.a.

Also, at the time I wrote this review, there were only mezzanine type projects available on the platform.

Should you invest on Ventus Energy?

After reviewing the platform, I can definitely say that I really like the concept of Ventus Energy.

I really like the fact that the platform offers to invest in projects that they own and manage completely, in a regulated sector, which completely removes the third-party risk of having to source projects externally.

They also offer excellent yields, and have a strong management team with several people I know personally from other investment platforms.

The platform is also well-designed and was really easy to use.

As for drawbacks, one consideration is that the company is relatively new and has a short track record. However, the great team and the fact that they own the projects adds confidence. Another potential drawback is that one of the team members, Janis Timma, was the founder of Crowdestor, which has a doubtful reputation. However, Janis's expertise in the energy sector is significant, and his responsibilities in Ventus Energy are focused on business development. Moreover, responsibilities are strictly divided among team members, which adds an extra level of security.

Additionally, I would have liked to see easier access to the investments, with a lower minimum investment in each project.

For all those reasons, I can really recommend trying out Ventus Energy and adding it to any investment portfolio.

It's also worth mentioning that right now there is a cashback offer available until the 1st of November. This means it's 18% p.a. plus a 5% cashback, and an additional 1% if a person registers via my link—adding up to a potential 24% return.

The information contained in this article is for informational purposes only. None of the information presented in the article is financial, legal, or tax advice. The content of this article solely represents the opinion of the author, who is not a licensed financial advisor or registered investment advisor. The author does not guarantee any particular outcome.