160000
investors
Sowefund is a French equity crowdfunding platform, founded in Paris in 2014 and owned since October 2023 by the venture firm Founders Future. It lets ordinary investors put EUR 1,000 or more into young French companies - aerospace, greentech, medtech and other innovation - alongside professional funds and business angels, at the same share price as those leads. Around 120 companies have been funded across roughly 140 rounds for over EUR 120 million, and about 160,000 people have registered.
What you usually own is a share in a holding company created for each deal, which owns the startup shares and is represented by Sowefund; owning shares directly costs 5% extra. There is no interest, no dividend and no repayment date: money comes back only if the company is sold, floats or is bought out in a later round - and there is no marketplace to sell early.
Four exits have been announced in twelve years.
The platform is authorised by France's markets regulator, the AMF, as an EU crowdfunding provider since July 2023, which governs its conduct but protects nothing about outcomes.
The main attraction for French taxpayers is tax relief: 18% to 50% of the amount invested can be deducted from income tax, depending on the company type. Sowefund charges investors on the way in - roughly 12% in combined fees on the standard route - and takes 19.5% of any gain on the way out.
License / Regulation: ECSPR PSFP, AMF France | Licence FP-2023-9 |
After a round closes, Sowefund's role is administration and information, not protection. On the standard route your shares sit in a per-deal holding company that Sowefund manages: it maintains the register, votes at the startup's meetings as one block and represents you throughout the life of the investment. The 5% holding fee is said to cover tracking and regular reporting, yet the FAQ elsewhere says reporting comes 'on request' - and no reporting schedule is published anywhere. If a company fails there is no recovery mechanism: shareholders rank last, and Sowefund's own blog concedes anything coming back is 'extremely rare'. Its historic playbook in one rescue was asking investors for more money.
The fee stack is real and sits in the FAQ, not on a fees page. On entry: 1% to 5% depending on ticket size. For the holding company: 5% administration plus about 2% running costs. Holding shares directly instead costs another 5%. Then 19.5% of any profit on exit - Sowefund's own example: a EUR 10,000 investment doubling to EUR 20,000 pays EUR 1,950 in success fee. In round numbers, about EUR 8,800 of every EUR 10,000 reaches the company, and your investment must grow roughly 14% just to hand your money back. Add 30% French flat tax on gains outside a PEA-PME account.
Sowefund funds a round only when a professional lead - a venture fund or experienced business angel - is already investing and has set the price; retail money then joins on the same terms. The stated process: a candidacy file with business plan, screening for genuine innovation and a sound economic model, founder interviews, then due diligence on strategy, accounts, market and five-year projections. Targets are French companies raising over EUR 300,000 at pre-seed to Series A stage. The platform claims it selects 1% of the deals it sees, though that figure cannot be checked. What selection does not do: price the round independently, grade risk, or tell you how the professionals' share class compares with yours.
No scandal, and that matters: no AMF sanction, no fraud allegations, and Sowefund is absent from the June 2026 French press investigation into crowdfunding failures that named nine other platforms. Trustpilot shows roughly 4.2 out of 5 (the count could not be verified - the site blocked reads in August 2026), and a solicited review channel shows 5.0 from 43 reviews with zero negatives, which should be read as marketing. The substantive criticism is quieter: a MoneyVox forum investor reported in November 2025 that of 20 startups backed over eight years, five or six were liquidated and only two exited, at about +15% each; a September 2025 poster in the same thread discovered the 19.5% success fee only after investing. Reviewers consistently flag silent portfolio companies, dilution favouring professionals in modest exits, and the impossibility of selling.
Sowefund was founded in 2014 by Benjamin Wattinne, still president, and Georges Viglietti. Camille Bonvicini was registered as managing director in April 2025. The team of roughly 10 to 20 includes named heads of growth, finance and investor relations. Since October 2023 the platform has been owned by Founders Future, the venture firm of entrepreneur Marc Menase - itself an active startup investor, which raises an obvious question the platform does not answer: no conflict-of-interest rules about listing companies connected to its owner are published. No investment committee or external advisory board is disclosed either.
Selling: you cannot - no market, no buyback, no bulletin board; money returns only through a sale, listing or buyout you do not control. Tax: 18% relief on standard deals (on up to EUR 50,000 invested a year, EUR 100,000 for couples, within France's EUR 10,000 overall tax-break limit); 30% or 50% on young innovative companies outside that limit, until end-2028; or hold in a PEA-PME and pay only 17.2% social charges on gains after five years. Sell before the holding period ends and the relief is clawed back - unless the company was liquidated.
