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Spotlight on Abundance Investment

An interview with Karl Harder, Co-Founder and Joint Managing Director of Abundance Investment.

Tell us more about Abundance Investment

We help people to invest to help build a sustainable future. We do this financing the development of net zero infrastructure. We have been operating since 2012, and in that time we have funded companies delivering a diverse range of green projects, from wind farms to tidal stream projects and sustainable forestry. But we are increasingly focussed on raising debt finance for councils who want to fund ambitious plans to decarbonise their communities.

We have been pioneers of the crowdfunding industry, laying claim to being the first regulated platform, and we were also closely involved in the development of the Innovative Finance ISA. As a firm we are immensely proud of helping create an industry which enables people to put their money to work to improve the places they live in.

Why did Abundance Investment decide to join the UKCFA?

We were founding members of the UKCFA. The goal was to create an industry body that would maintain standards across the sector, while also providing a platform for engaging with policy makers to ensure the UK continued to provide a high quality regulatory environment for the sector. 

We believe this will help whole country to benefit from opening up new channels for enabling money to be invested in growing the UK economy, while also ensuring platforms continue to operate effectively.

Tell us your current take on the industry, what works well and what present or future issues might affect the industry

There is a risk that the regulations treat all crowdfunding as the same, and also that this regulation becomes too prescriptive. The crowdfunding ecosystem is highly diverse, with different platforms having different sector and risk focuses. It is important to maintain a principle based regulatory environment, and give platforms the leeway to create customer journeys and risk warning that reflect the specific risks that exist on their platform. If all journeys and risk warnings are standardised through regulation, investors may zone out to them as they will recognise they do not represent the specific risks of each platform.

If the UK wants to stimulate growth, we need to ensure that policy makers fully recognise that vibrant capital markets are critical. Crowdfunding fills an important gap in the funding of early stage companies. If this element is lost or undermined, we will limit the UK’s ability to retain high growth, high impact companies in the UK.

If you would like to learn more about Abundance Investment or speak with Karl directly, please visit: Abundance Investment