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Companisto is Germany's longest-running startup investment platform, founded in Berlin in 2012 and still funding new companies today.
From 250 euros you back German-speaking startups and growth companies; from 10,000 euros, Angel Club members receive real shares and access to a 15 percent German state grant.
The key thing to understand is what smaller investors actually get: usually not shares, but pooled participation rights or subordinated loans, which make you a creditor who ranks behind every other creditor - the bank, the tax office, suppliers - if the company fails.
Money comes back only if a company is sold, floats or buys investors out, which in practice has taken four to ten years.
Companisto has raised about 386 million euros across 504 funding rounds from over 192,000 registered investors, and unusually it publishes its results: of the 210 million euros in its tracked portfolio, 12 percent has been paid back to investors, 24 percent has been written off, and the rest is still tied up in companies that have neither succeeded nor failed.
Investing is free; Companisto takes 15 percent of any profit when you win, and the startup pays it 15 percent of what it raises.
The platform is not supervised by BaFin as a crowdfunding provider - it works under an older German trade licence and a partner firm's securities licence - so investors do not get the EU crowdfunding rulebook's protections.
Money is only collected if a funding round reaches its target; otherwise commitments are released.
License / Regulation: 34f GewO trade licence; tied agent under Effecta GmbH | Licence 80164077
Companisto scores well with users - Trustpilot 4.3 out of 5 from about 1,536 reviews as at August 2026, with only 4 percent one-star - but that mostly measures the sign-up experience, not investment outcomes. The sharpest criticism concerns presentation: a German investor-forum thread titled 'Augenwischerei' (window-dressing) attacks the portfolio page for leading with a 61 percent paper valuation gain while twice as much capital has been written off as returned - a fair objection on the platform's own figures. Named failures include SIRPLUS, Govecs, Solarnative and Sawade, with two rounds marked as total losses; the write-off share rose from about 19 percent of capital in September 2022 to 23.68 percent by August 2026. Older history: a 2017 press report showed the operating company was balance-sheet overindebted in 2016 and avoided insolvency via a subordinated loan partly from its own crowd investors. No BaFin warning or sanction against Companisto was found. Recent Trustpilot complaints centre on slow, bumpy identity verification.
Usually not. In the Basic tier from 250 euros you typically hold pooled participation certificates, subordinated profit-participating loans or silent partnerships - creditor positions with no votes and no company-law rights, ranking behind all other creditors. Only Angel Club members from 10,000 euros receive real GmbH shares or stock. Beware a translation trap: Companisto's English FAQ claims 'pure equity investments only', while the governing German FAQ still lists subordinated loans among the instruments - the German version is the one that counts.
Startups apply to Companisto and an in-house investment team, led by a partner with over 20 years in venture capital, reviews each application; only about 1 percent of applicants make it onto the platform. Stated criteria are an innovative business model, quality standards and growth potential. What is not disclosed is most of the machinery: who sits on the committee, how valuations are checked, and whether the team independently verifies the founders' figures. The filter is real but no guarantee - 30 percent of the rounds that passed it have since failed - and it does not change the small investor's legal position as a subordinated creditor. Funding is all-or-nothing: miss the target and everyone's money is released.
Investing itself is free: no account, deposit or subscription fees. The costs sit elsewhere. Companisto takes a 15 percent success fee, or carry, on your profit distributions and exit proceeds - charged on the winners, while you absorb the losers in full. The startup also pays Companisto 15 percent of the capital it raises, money that never reaches the company's operations. Secondary-market charges are not published. Profits are subject to the standard German 25 percent capital gains tax plus solidarity surcharge, withheld at source. Angel Club members effectively get the carry back through the state's 15 percent INVEST refund; smaller investors do not.
Gains are taxed at 25 percent plus surcharges, withheld by the startup. When a company fails, Companisto helps you obtain a loss certificate to set the loss against other capital income - useful, but a sign of how often it is needed. And expect to hold for a very long time: the realised exits took four years (KoRo), around seven and a half (ASE) and about ten (Mineko), and there is no working market to sell early.
