Raize raises €4 million from C2 Capital for international expansion

Raize, a crowdfunding platform for loans to SMEs, is to receive up to a €4 million investment from venture capital company C2 Capital Partners to boost its international expansion.

As part of the partnership, announced on Tuesday, Raize will have immediate access to two million euros from the investment line made available by C2 Capital to reinforce the fintech’s equity, while the remaining two million are dependent on performance in 2025 and 2025.

According to the two entities, the agreement aims to “improve the performance and technological functionalities of the Portuguese crowdfunding platform and support its international expansion to markets such as Spain, Luxembourg and Italy”.

“This investment is a vote of confidence in our project and in Raize’s ability to scale its impact at a European level. We are prepared to grow sustainably (…) and innovate in the way crowdfunding transforms access to credit,” says Alberto Amaral, CEO of Raize, whose largest shareholder is Flexdeal.

André Oliveira, a partner at C2 Capital Partner, hopes that this investment will help Raize to “enter a new strategic phase of expansion, strengthening its fundamental role in alternative financing for SMEs in Portugal and, soon, in several European markets”.

Raize, led by Alberto Amaral, has been consolidating its operation in Portugal and is now betting on making the leap abroad on the back of the new European Regulation on Crowdfunding – which allows the Portuguese fintech to be able to operate in all countries of the European Union.

Founded about a decade ago, Raize closed 2024 with losses of €30,300, after a negative result of almost €50,000 in the previous year. It had more than 100,000 customers, of which 31,000 were business or institutional, with the volume of new financing reaching €29 million last year.