Investing costs nothing on the platform itself - CrowdFundMe is paid by the companies raising money, at an undisclosed percentage. For small-company quotas held via Directa, real fees apply: 15 euros one-off to open the account (80 for companies), 30 euros per successful offering, and 5 euros for each certificate you need to exercise shareholder rights; transfers within the regime are free. Leaving that regime to be registered directly in the company's books costs you the notary and stamp duties - more than a small stake is worth. Capital gains are taxed at 26 percent, withheld automatically. Your bank may charge for the transfer.

Companies apply and an internal team assesses each candidate through a selection process and track record of success; survivors get help preparing the campaign, which then runs publicly for up to 60 days on an all-or-nothing basis. The acceptance rate is not disclosed. Three limits matter. The platform earns a percentage of funds raised and sells campaign preparation and marketing to the companies it approves, so its revenue depends on campaigns launching, not on them succeeding. The due diligence does not validate business plans - Italian sector data shows crowdfunding issuers' projections overshoot reality several times over. And companies set their own valuations: a live 2026 campaign sought money at a 90-million-euro valuation with no independent opinion published.

Yes. The Trustpilot picture is small but stark: 2.0 out of 5 from twelve reviews as at August 2026, with 84 percent one-star and not a single four- or five-star review. The themes: a company already in liquidation six months after its raise; investors feeling completely abandoned when reporting stopped; a claimed 90 percent loss in a structure where investors ended up with non-voting class-B units in a vehicle rather than the startup itself; and an unusable resale mechanism. The Milan press covered small Winelivery shareholders left empty-handed after the app's sale - Winelivery being a flagship issuer once promoted at 18 times investors' money whose registry accounts show 4.5 million euros of revenue and a 1.8-million-euro loss in 2025. The platform's own 2026 tax guide still cites a 30 percent relief that was suspended from January 2026 and a 50 percent rate that became 65 percent - materially misleading for anyone sizing an investment. No Consob sanction against the platform was found; two Italian rivals were suspended by regulators and one entered liquidation, so the market context is rough.

Founder Tommaso Baldissera Pacchetti started the business in 2013 and led it through its 2019 stock-market listing, but the June 2026 merger changed the guard: his stake fell from 34 to 11 percent, every previous director resigned, and a new board chaired by Laura Pedrinazzi was appointed by the new reference shareholder, investment firm Smart Capital, which holds 31 percent. The operating company - now called Entera - has just five employees on the register. The practical point: the people who selected the companies in your portfolio are largely not the people now running the platform your holdings depend on.

Mechanically, quotas held via Directa transfer without a notary: find a buyer yourself, agree a price privately, and Directa books the change free of charge. Practically, that buyer rarely exists: the bulletin board is legally not a trading venue, matches nobody and publishes no completed transactions - in its first five months it carried 819 sell listings and the platform admitted it could not say whether a single one traded. Also check your tax assumptions: the 30 percent startup relief is suspended for investments made from January 2026, and the surviving 65 percent relief is narrow - young innovative startups only, direct holdings only, three-year lock-up - despite what the platform's own guide still says.

Thinly. Funded companies are expected to publish periodic updates, but enforcement looks weak - one reviewer reports being abandoned when a company simply stopped reporting, and the platform's own page for a flagship issuer still displayed projections in August 2026 that registry data had long disproved. If a company fails, there is no guarantee, no provision fund and no recovery process: equity holders rank last in an Italian liquidation, and CrowdFundMe publishes no list of failed issuers, so you may only learn a holding is worthless by checking the business register yourself. Follow-on funding rounds can also dilute crowd investors, who usually cannot participate in them.

The June 2026 merger renamed the operator Entera, moved it to Monza, handed control to Smart Capital and pivoted the strategy toward SME services, with crowdfunding just one line of business - yet in August 2026 the site's terms still named the old company, address and share capital. The group's own strategy treats pure crowdfunding as a business that did not work standalone, and its listed shares trade 88 percent below the 2019 float price. For an investor whose exit depends on this company maintaining registries, bulletin boards and issuer reporting for years to come, that transition - and the unanswered question of how the licence carries over - is worth watching.