For South African SME owners, finding willing and viable sources of capital to fund a project or invoice can be a challenge. On the other side of the coin, if you want to invest your money into a local enterprise for a better future, finding the right candidate with the right project can be challenging.
According to The Small Business Institute, 98.5% of South Africa's economy is made up of small and medium-sized enterprises, but these SMEs are only delivering 28% of all jobs.
With unemployment, especially youth unemployment, so high, it's vital that borrowers and investors have a place to connect.
Investmint streamlines this process, giving borrowers and investors access to each other’s projects and capital.
So, how do you sign up for Investmint?
First, select whether you need funds (a borrower) or have funds to invest (an investor).
Once you've selected your role, it's time to submit your verification documents.
Let's talk about what you'll need to submit as a borrower:
Sign up to be a Borrower
To qualify, your business will need to be South African registered. We require a certificate of incorporation, memorandum of incorporation and a CoR39 to be submitted.
Your company will need to be using cloud-based accounting software, like Xero or QuickBooks. Investmint requires you to add compliance@investmint.co.za as a read-only user and will use these details to view your account history. If you don't utilize cloud-based accounting, we recommend contacting CloudWorx to bring your business accounting processes into 2019.
Lastly, you'll need to upload a copy of your ID and tax clearance certificate (with status pin) – if you don't have one, we can help you get one.
We understand the importance of due diligence and take pride in our thorough verification process. Once you have submitted all documents, the team at Investmint will verify your application manually and if there are any issues, an Investmint team member will contact you. There is no automated voice call service here, you will have access to a real person who can clarify the process and requirements in greater detail. We want to ensure that you receive custom solutions and one-on-one feedback for any issues you might encounter or questions that might arise.
Once your application has been approved, you'll gain access to the platform via your profile, and you'll be able to post your first project to be funded.
Choose between invoice factoring or project financing for your business and submit the required project documents. We’ll need to see evidence of a legitimate project – this could be a purchase order, an invoice, or a contract, depending on the project details and your client.
Once your project is approved by Investmint, all you need to do is wait for an investor, or multiple investors, to fund your project.
Once your project is fully funded, you will receive payment into your bank account. From there, it’s up to you to ensure your repayments are made on time, increasing your chances of a successful second (and third, fourth, and fifth!) project.
On-time repayments are important to your repayment score. Your repayment score indicates your track record to potential investors and determines your interest rate.
By default, all new borrowers have a repayment score of 75%, but once you have completed your 5th successful project, your repayment rating takes effect. Every on-time repayment will increase your score, and this score will increase potential investors’ likelihood of investing with you as this number is displayed on the platform.
As your score increases, your monthly interest rate decreases. While a borrower just starting out with their first project would pay 4.7% for invoice factoring, by the 6th project, they would pay only 3.8% of all repayments had been made on time.
Sign up to be an Investor
As an Investor, there are no minimum investments, so you contribute the amount that works for you.
To sign up, simply create an account and upload your ID, proof of residency and proof of banking to the platform. Once these are verified manually by Investmint’s team, you can start to explore.
You'll be able to browse and fund multiple projects depending on what works for your wallet and your timing. If you are not able to fund an entire project, you can partially fund any project for the remaining unfunded amount.
All projects have been manually approved by a real person at Investmint, so no project is uploaded without proper investigation into accounts and an understanding of client transaction history.
By funding a project on Investmint you're not just growing your own capital; you're also helping grow the economy one project at a time.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us directly.
