Welcome Review

What it is

Welcome is a French investment platform run by Welcome SAS in Bordeaux. It used to trade as Buildr, and buildr.fr now leads to the Welcome site. It offers mainly bonds that finance property, hotel and small-business projects, in two ranges: Private Income (regular interest, for example hotel debt and Paris hotel suites) and Private Value (projects aiming for a gain, such as adding floors to buildings or start-ups). Many investors come through wealth advisers. The platform says its community has invested more than €170 million in more than 200 projects, but those figures are dated 31 July 2025 and have not been updated since.

How it works

You open an account, pass a knowledge test if you are a non-sophisticated investor, and choose each deal yourself. You pay by bank transfer into a personal wallet. Minimums depend on the deal: on 1 November 2026 one open offer started at €100 and another at €50,000. Interest and repayments come back to your wallet on the schedule set at the start; neither the return nor the term is guaranteed. Full deal files are shown only to registered users.

Returns

Welcome advertises a target return of 7% to 15% a year (figure dated 31 July 2025). Offers open on 1 November 2026 targeted 13.4% (a Paris apartment-hotel renovation) and 12%, and the hotel suites aim to pay up to 8% a year on average. These are targets only. The platform publishes no realised return, no average achieved return and no return after losses, so how past deals actually paid out cannot be checked.

Losses and defaults

Welcome publishes no default rate, no late-payment rate and no realised losses (checked 31 October 2026). Its public project list shows only repaid, funded and open deals, with no late or defaulted status. Most French licensed crowdfunding platforms publish these performance indicators, so the gap is a real weakness: you cannot see how often borrowers have paid late or failed.

What secures your money

The security differs from deal to deal and is shown only in the deal file. The platform lists the forms it uses: a registered mortgage, a mortgage signed before a notary but not registered, a promise to grant a mortgage (not registered, so another lender can still take a mortgage first), a pledge (for example on shares of the project company), and guarantees: a first-demand guarantee, a third-party guarantee, a personal guarantee from the business owner and an irrevocable payment order. Guarantees depend on the guarantor being able to pay and are not security over an asset. No buyback or reserve fund is described, and no figures on recoveries from failed deals are published. Start-up shares in the Private Value range are not secured at all.

Who runs it and its licence

The platform is run by Welcome SAS (company number 914 949 714, share capital €1,365,700, Bordeaux), part of the M Partners group. The French market regulator (AMF) licensed it as a European crowdfunding service provider under number FP-2023-42. A sister company, M Capital Partners, is an AMF-approved fund manager (GP 02-028). Welcome designs some products in house with its partners, such as the hotel suites, and publishes a conflicts-of-interest policy. Investments are not covered by a deposit guarantee or investor compensation scheme.

Fees

Investors pay nothing to use the platform or to invest: the terms say no fee is charged to members for a subscription. The project owner pays the platform's fee and the deal costs, which are set out in each deal's key information sheet; the amounts are not published on the open site. Target returns are stated net of the costs borne by the investment vehicle. If Welcome stopped operating, a back-up servicer, CAPSENS, would take over repayments and deduct 2% plus VAT from the amounts repaid to investors.

Getting your money out

Welcome offers no secondary market on its site, and its terms warn that the investments are illiquid. Your money stays in each deal until the borrower repays, and the term is not guaranteed: it depends on the project succeeding. Money repaid to your wallet can be reinvested or transferred to your bank account.

Our view

Return: Very high, based only on the top of the advertised 7% to 15% target range; nothing realised is published. Risk: High (higher means more risk), because Welcome publishes no default or loss figures and the security varies by deal, in some cases only a promise of a mortgage or a guarantee. Risk-return: Low, because a target range is the only return figure and the outcome of past deals cannot be checked.