In this LANDE review you will find an extensive deep dive analysis of the Latvian marketplace that offers investments in agricultural loans. The review will cover the origin story of the platform, the shareholder structure, the LANDE business model, investment-related topics as well as all risks that investors need to be aware of.
The LANDE review will wrap up with a pro and con debate as well as with my final verdict of the plaform.
All the information that are covered in this LANDE review are based on my own personal experiences with the platform since 2021. Please make sure to do your own due diligence before investing on any platform. More information can be found in the Disclaimer.
Further analyses of other platforms can be found on my P2P Platform Review page.
Summary
Before we get started, here is a quick summary with the most important information about LANDE.
- LANDE is a Latvia-based P2P platform where investors can invest in agricultural loans and earn a return of up to 12%.
- LANDE obtained the European Crowdfunding Service Provider Licence (ECSP) in February 2024 and can offer its services throughout the EU.
- The platform is characterised by a high level of loan collateralisation, with an average loan-to-value (LTV) of 44%. To date, there have been no capital losses for investors.
- LANDE has experienced strong growth in the first few years, which has led to a certain overload of operational processes at times.
| Founded / Started: | December 2009 / January 2021 |
| Legal Name: | SIA LANDE Platform (LINK) |
| Headquarter: | Riga, Latvia |
| Regulated: | Yes (ECSP License) |
| CEO: | Nikita Goncars (June 2019) |
| Community Voting: | 2.80 out of 5 | See Voting |
| Assets Under Management: | EUR 16+ Million (September 2024) |
| Number of Investors: | 7.000+ (September 2024) |
| Expected Return: | Up to 12% |
| Primary Loan Type: | Agricultural Loans |
| Collateral: | Mortgage |
| Bonus: | 1% Cashback for 180 Days |
About LANDE
LANDE (formerly LendSecured) is a Latvian P2P platform where investors can finance a variety of highly collateralized agricultural and development loans, while earning a return of up to 12%. The operational launch of the platform took place in July 2020. The first loans have been issued in September 2020.
The business model of LANDE intends to close the underfinanced gap among small and medium-sized enterprises in the agricultural sector. According to a study by the European Investment Bank this gap has been between EUR 19.8 billion and EUR 46.6 billion in the European Union during 2020.
Although LANDE is a comparatively new platform, it offers attractive conditions for investors who want to diversify their portfolio outside from traditional consumer loans. The platform also received the European crowdfunding service provider licence at the beginning of 2024, allowing the company to operate throughout Europe.
The Origin Story
The origin of LANDE goes back to 2008. That year, Edgars Tālums (left) established the non-bank lender Latvijas Hipotēka. This company specialized primarily in financing mortgage loans.
In 2011, Nikita Goncars joined the company as a second shareholder and business partner. Over the years, collateralization by agricultural land and smaller residential properties developed into a core competence of the company.
The loan financing came primarily from a small circle of wealthy private investors. Some of them are still cross-financing LANDE’s loan projects today (anchor investors). In order to help their investors to monitor their loan portfolios, the company created the first prototype of what is now known as the LANDE P2P platform in 2017.
In July 2020, a decision was made to allow also smaller retail investors to finance the loan book, which enabled LANDE to further diversify their funding sources. The P2P platform was born.
Ownership and Management
Who are the main shareholders and management executives behind LANDE? Let’s have a look!
LANDE Ownership
Who owns LANDE? The platform is operated by the company “SIA LANDE Platform”, which was founded on 14 March 2022.
A look at the Latvian company register reveals that the platform is currently owned by four different shareholders.
88.6% of the shares are held by LANDE CEO and co-founder Nikita Goncars, who is therefore also the ultimate beneficial owner (UBO) of the platform.
The remaining shares are held by VAUBAN NOMINEES LIMITED with 4.6%, the LANDE investors with 4.5% and the BADideas Fund with 2.2%.
LANDE Management
Ņikita Gončars is the CEO, co-founder and strong man behind Latvian platform LANDE.
He graduated from BA School of Business and Finance, one of the leading business schools in Latvia. He was then co-founding several companies in the financial, real estate and agricultural sectors. This was followed in June 2019 by the launch of LANDE, formerly LendSecured.
On this page, investors can look at the other platform’s team members.
During June 2024, I visited up to 20 P2P platforms in the Baltic States, including LANDE. In my interview with LANDE CEO Nikita, you can learn more about how LANDE has recently transformed themselves after having a couple of operational issues in the first half of 2024.
Business Model and Finances
Throughout the process of due diligence, investors should also have a look at the business model of a P2P platform as well as the overall financial situation. How does the company earn money? Does the platform operate profitably? And how well is the company positioned financially? In the following paragraphs of this LANDE review, you can follow-up on those questions.
Business Model
LANDE is a P2P lending platform which is focussing on the agricultural sector. With its business model, the platform is an intermediary between investors, who are pursuing a return by providing their capital, and farmers on the other side who want to take out loans for their business via the platform.
In line with the ‘classic’ P2P model, LANDE acquires and scores the borrowers themselves before the loans are offered for financing on the platform.
Monetization
How does LANDE earn money? To find out, investors can download the annual reports of the LANDE platform from their website. According to the latest annual report for 2023, LANDE recently generated a revenue of EUR 1.6 million, which is roughly a five-fold increase compared to the previous year. More detailed information on the revenue sources haven’t been shared in the annual report.
According to my conversations with LANDE, the platform earns its revenue on two different levels. On one side, LANDE is issuing a brokerage fee, which is die in the event of successful financing on the platform. This fee can amount to up to 10%. Secondly, LANDE is charging a monitoring fee, which is calculated from the outstanding repayment amount. This fee is usually between 1% and 4%.
Profitability
Is LANDE profitable? When we look at the latest annual report for 2023, LANDE reported a loss of EUR 73,000. The platform is therefore not yet profitable.
Parallel to the strong revenue growth, expenditures for employees, IT and marketing have increased as well. At the same time, LANDE is still having equity reserves of around EUR 430,000 from a previous financing round to continue with its current growth path.
In this regard, LANDE is a good example for a growing company where a lack of profitability doesn’t need not be unusual or problematic.
Sign Up and Bonus
To invest on LANDE, investors must meet three requirements:
- A minimum age of 18 years
- Proof of residence in the European Economic Area
- SEPA bank account
The registration process at LANDE is fairly simple and intuitive. After opening the account via email, the KYC (Know-Your-Customer) and AML (Anti-Money-Laundering) questionnaires have to be completed. This is followed by the verification of identity.
Also legal entities have the opportunity to sign up on LANDE.
LANDE Bonus
If you consider investing on LANDE, a sign up through this link will enable you to get a cashback bonus of 1% in the first 180 days after registration.
Investing on LANDE
How does LANDE work and what should investors know and consider when investing on the plaform? In the following sections of my LANDE review you will find all the necessary information that you need.
Loan Offering
The loans that are offered on LANDE can be segmented into five different areas:
- Seasonal loans secured with grain products
- Loans for agricultural machinery
- Loans for the purchase of land
In addition, two less common loan products are subsidized mortgage loans as well as factoring loans.
Most of the agricultural loans offered on LANDE come from the Latvian market. At the same time, LANDE also offers loans from Lithuania and Romania.
Here are some average numbers from the LANDE loan portfolio: The loan-to-value (LTV) is 44%, the interest rate is 10.6%, the loan term is 18 months and the loan amount is EUR 23,000.
There is currently no monthly deposit limit for LANDE users, as is the case with Bondora Go & Grow, for example.
Costs and Fees
There are no fees or hidden costs for retail investors on LANDE. Neither for deposits or withdrawals, nor for the functionalities when investing on the platform.
Expected Returns
If you invest in agricultural loans on LANDE, you can achieve a return of up to 14% (taking cashback campaigns into account). The interest rates of the loans can fluctuate depending on the market phase. Usually, they are between 10% and 12%.
Possible loan defaults should be taken into account in the overall assessment, which can have a negative impact on the expected return.
My personal investment experience with LANDE goes back to December 2021. Since then, I have achieved a total return of 9.46% (July 2024).
LANDE Auto Invest
LANDE has launched an Auto Invest feature in December 2021. The Auto Invest is divided into “Basic” and “Advanced”.
With the basic Auto Invest, no criteria can be selected. This way, investors automatically invest in every loan that becomes available. The minimum investment amount is EUR 50.
With the advanced LANDE Auto Invest, investors have several options to choose from. For example, the interest rate, the loan term, the loan-to-value (LTV) or the type of collateral can be defined more precisely.
In 2024, LANDE added two more elements with the repayment type and the borrower countries. In addition, the minimum investment amount for the advanced Auto Invest strategy has been reduced from EUR 250 to EUR 100 per loan.
Secondary Market
LANDE integrated a secondary market in October 2020, where investors can sell their investments or buy already funded loans. Contrary to the minimum investment amount on the primary market (EUR 50), investors can purchase loans starting from EUR 2. No fees apply.
Investors that want to diversify their portfolio on a broader scale and that aim to allocate their funds a lot faster, the secondary market on LANDE can be a good place to start. Note: The LANDE secondary market was relaunched in June 2024. Investors can find out about the new rules in this article.
Buyback Guarantee
LANDE does not offer any kind of buyback guarantee. This is common practice for platforms that offer loans backed by collateral. The loans on LANDE are secured by mortgage with an average LTV of 43%, which is extremly low-risk. For comparison: Real estate platform EstateGuru offers an LTV average of 65%.
Whether the collateral may be overvalued can only be assessed when loans default and the collection processes have increased on the platform.
LANDE Forum
If you have questions about LANDE, other platforms or different p2p-related topics, you can join the re:think P2P Community on Facebook and engage in discussions with more than 1,000 other private retail investors.
Alternatively, you can get the latest Lande news and updates via my channels on Telegram or WhatsApp.
LANDE Taxes
Generally, interest income generated by loan financing is considered investment income and must be reported as such on the tax declaration. Unlike other platforms, LANDE does not withhold any taxes at the moment.
For the tax declaration, investors can find the “Balance” tab in the main menu, where a tax report for the respective year can be downloaded as a PDF (“Income Statement”). This information can then be used to be submitted to the tax office.
LANDE Risks
Investors should look very carefully at the potential risk factors when evaluating a P2P platform. What is it that investors need to be aware of when it comes to LANDE? Where are the underlying risks and how are they assessed?
The get an idea about potential risk elements involved at LANDE, the platform published a list of aspects that investors need to be aware of. This includes market risk, liquidity risk, platform risk and many more.
Platform Risk
The operational launch of the platform took place in July 2020, while the first loans were financed in September 2020. The platform is registered as “SIA LANDE Platform” in Latvia. It is controlled and monitored by the Latvian Financial Supervision Authority (Latvijas Banka). Since February 2024, the platform has obtained a licence as a European crowdfunding service provider, which allows the company to offer its services throughout Europe.
Accordingly, LANDE must fulfil a certain level of compliance and transparency standards that increase the security of the platform. This includes the publication of audited annual reports.
LANDE is still a very young P2P platform. Investors should therefore be cautious and follow developments closely. The strong growth in the first few years has at times led to a certain degree of overloading of the platform.
Loan Default Risk
LANDE offers highly collateralized agricultural and development loans on its platform. The collateralization breaks down as follows:
- Properties and Agricultural Land: 41%
- (Heavy) Machinery: 32%
- Grain Products from Farm Production: 26%.
Investors should be aware that loan defaults are part of the business and cannot be avoided in the long term.
The average loan-to-value ratio on LANDE is 44%. If farmers are no longer able to repay their loans, the loans appear to be well secured.
The first defaulted loans were successfully and 100% recovered. This means that investors have not yet suffered any losses on their investments. The registered collateral has always had a sufficient risk buffer.
War in Ukraine
The war in Ukraine has had a positive impact on LANDE. This is due to severe restrictions on the global trade of grain products, which has caused prices to skyrocket. At one point, a ton of wheat was traded for more than EUR 400, which meant an increase of 60%.
Russia and Ukraine represent about 30% of world exports for wheat and barley. This has been beneficial to LANDE investors as approximately 50% of the outstanding loan portfolio has been secured with grain product purchase contracts. As the value of this collateral has increased significantly, the default risks for investors have also fallen at the same time.
Overall, the war in Ukraine had no negative impact on LANDE’s operational activities.
Advantages and Disadvantages
In this section I have listed the most important advantages and disadvantages of LANDE.
Advantages
- Regulation: Lande obtained the European licence for crowdfunding service providers in February 2024.
- Niche: Agricultural loans are a great opportunity to diversify the portfolio outside of consumer loans.
- Experience: Ņikita Goncars is an seasoned businessman with years of professional experience.
- Account Segregation: Through Lemon Way, investors’ accounts are protected from misappropriation.
- Collateralisation: The loans on LANDE have an average loan-to-value ratio of 44%.
Disadvantages
- Track Record: LANDE is still a comparatively young P2P platform in the market.
- Financial Reports: To date, the platform didn’t publish any audited financial reports.
LANDE Alternatives
If you are looking for a LANDE alternative you should keep an eye on HeavyFinance. The Lithuanian platform is also heavily promoting agricultural loans and hence offers the biggest overlap to LANDE.
You can find other LANDE alternatives on the P2P Platform Comparison page.
Community Feedback
The LANDE satisfaction among P2P investors can be seen as above average. In the Community Voting 2023, a strong score of 3.89 points was achieved with 93 votes (4th place out of 30) while in 2022, Lande managed the same position (out of 20 platforms) with an average score of 3.59 points.
However, there was a slight setback in 2024, where Lande only managed to score 2.80 points (157 votes), which was only good enough for P15 this time around.
The most popular P2P platforms in 2024 have been Robocash, Profitus, Viainvest, PeerBerry and Esketit. The ratings are based on my P2P Community Voting 2024.
Summary LANDE Review 2024
What is the final verdict of my LANDE review and my personal opinion of the platform?
LANDE is a regulated crowdfunding platform based in Latvia that operates in an exciting and rapidly growing niche with its positioning in the agricultural sector. This not only offers great growth potential for the platform, but also creates real value for investors in terms of diversification.
Due to the strong growth of the platform, there was a temporary overload of operational processes, which affected IT, the secondary market and the collection process, among other things. However, LANDE has been much more stable again since summer 2024. The performance of the loan portfolio is also within a good range.
Anyone who is looking for an additional alternative to their P2P portfolio, apart from traditional consumer loans, LANDE is an emerging platform worth considering.
FAQ LANDE Review
LANDE is a Latvia-based P2P platform where investors can invest in agricultural loans and earn a return of up to 12%.
The platform is operated by the company “SIA LANDE Platform”, which was founded on 14 March 2022. 88.6% of the shares are held by LANDE CEO and co-founder Nikita Goncars, who is therefore also the ultimate beneficial owner (UBO) of the platform.
LANDE earns its revenue on two different levels. On one side, there is a classic brokerage fee (success fee), which is payable in the event of successful financing on the platform. On the other side, LANDE charges a monitoring fee, which is calculated from the outstanding portfolio.
Yes, LANDE is regulated. The company has been licensed as a European Crowdfunding Service Provider (ECSP) since February 2024.
If you consider investing on LANDE, a sign up through this link will enable you to get a cashback bonus of 1% in the first 180 days after registration.
Dont you think Lande is an EXTREMELY dangerous platform ?
All its loans are secured by land and other hard to sell and legally complicated assets?
I mean is Estateguru is taking years or maybe decades to recover failed investments and this is with houses I can only imagine Lande trying to sell some farmer’s field to recover investor’s money
Am I the only one thinking Lande is a tricking nuclear time bomb ?
How Lande is recovering defaulted assets will be interesting to watch, for sure. But so far, I don’t consider Lande being riskier than other comparable alternatives.
Thank you for your question Nuno,
Agricultural land is an extremely liquid asset in the Baltics and EU. Due to the high deficit, most land plots are sold above the valuation price on the auctions.
https://eng.lsm.lv/article/economy/economy/farmland-prices-tripled-over-decade-in-latvia.a461551/
Also, compared with residential real estate or construction, there are no risks of unfinished construction, company bankruptcy, etc. Land is a finished asset with a clear and stable valuation.