In order to continue making progress in this type of initiative and with the aim of encouraging the financing of business projects through the entry of private capital, the aim is to set up as a pilot a new co-financing programme, through public-private collaboration, aimed at financing projects for the creation of new companies and projects that generate a positive impact on the region, that pursue the fulfilment of some of the sustainable development objectives, contributing from an innovative point of view to the improvement of employment, using crowdfunding as a vehicle for attracting financing.

The objective would be to develop an instrument for the co-financing of new projects that are financed through a crowdfunding or crowdequity platform by individuals or private investors through different rounds of financing. To this end, a specific fund will be set up through which the administration will co-finance part of the financing rounds developed, with the aim of ensuring that the participating projects and companies achieve better results and that their funds are managed responsibly and transparently.

Extremadura would like to use pilot for testing the support of microentrepreneurs who run a crowdfunding campaign, match-funding each private contribution with ESIF resources (provided that the project had raised at least 10% of its initial target and up to a maximum of EUR 1 000 per project). Supporting scheme will test possibility the promoter fee payable to the platform (typically 5% of the amounts raised) would be covered by regional funds. The Extremadura Region will also test the possibility to establish partnerships with crowdfunding platforms also in the 2021-2027 programming period.

Testing will allow the Regional authority to change policy instrument to permanent one, based on experiences from pilot test. Successfull combination would build best practice example on EU level and allow other regions to replicate the policy change.