🤩 WE’VE UPDATED THE WEBSITE!

Investing isn’t about fun and games. People invest because they want to grow what they have, so they don’t want a rollercoaster ride. People don’t invest for volatility and excitement. They invest for results.

And when it comes to the assets we invest in, we want them to be as clear and informative as possible, without unnecessary information.

We decided to bring this philosophy to our platform. So when you open the 8lends website, you see everything you need to know without anything extra:

🔘 Our results and who we are
🔘 Projects available for investment
🔘 A section on how we handle risks
🔘 An investment calculator where you can see the possible returns
🔘 Our monthly reports

But a picture is worth a thousand words, as they say. So you’d better check out the updated website for yourself 👇

Click to open

We’re planning a lot more updates, so we’re not stopping here! Send some 🔥 if you love this update!

You’ll see this message at the moment you need it.

In one of our latest YouTube videos, we discussed something that bothers a lot of people:

✨ Success.

What is it? How do you know if you’re a successful person?

Everyone has their own answer, but we decided to look at this question from different angles.

If you’ve ever asked yourself this question, you should watch this video 👇

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmjZZSGxiRY

WE’RE GIVING AWAY 2 TICKETS TO TOKEN2049!

TOKEN2049 takes place in Singapore on October 7–8.

If you’ve ever wanted to connect with other Web3 developers or meet us in person, this is your chance!

Want to try your luck? Find all the giveaway details on our X 👇

https://x.com/eightlends

🤩 What do you think about our new leagues?

At the beginning of September, we introduced you to 8lends leagues.

Did this system make your investment experience better? Or would you like to share your feedback?

You can influence how leagues will look in the future.

To make an impact, leave your feedback in the comments under this post or fill out a short Google Form through the link below 🤩

Click to open the Form

19 Months of 8lends! 🤩

How’s your autumn going? We hope you’re enjoying it, because we are!

The new season kicked off well for us, thanks to you 👇

From September 1 to October 3:

🔘 Raised: $2,274,978
🔘 Total investors: 2,860
🔘 Funded loans: $23,147,005
🔘 Loans repaid: $10,987,272

Thank you all for helping us reach these numbers! We really appreciate your support, so we’re working hard to make the platform smoother and investments more secure while keeping them as profitable as possible for both you and the businesses.

✨ Next week, we’ll share our monthly PDF report for September, with a more detailed breakdown of last month’s results.

😉 The 8lends team wishes you a great autumn! And to make it even better, we recommend brightening up these dull days with some investments and attractive returns:

https://app.8lends.io/en

THE SEPTEMBER REPORT IS HERE!

We’ve done quite a lot of work this summer, and we hope you’ve noticed it! But there’s still a lot ahead, and you’ll see more updates through the end of this year.

🤩 Have a great autumn, everyone!

And let’s leave some 🔥 under this post to help us all warm up on these cold days!

These red flags made us reject SMEs for listing.

Our top priority is your security. We’re not saying that just to make you feel better — it’s a fact.

If a business can’t repay its loan, we lose money, you lose money, and our track record and reputation suffer too. That’s why we use several layers of protection, and due diligence before listing is one of them.

Whenever an SME applies for funding, we dig into the business before deciding whether to list it. And most of the time, we have to say “no.”

Why? Because we see red flags like these 👇

🚩 Ownership structures that are unnecessarily complicated or unclear.
🚩 Revenue reported to us doesn’t match tax filings or bank transactions.
🚩 Bank statements don’t support the reported turnover.
🚩 References, contracts, or customer relationships can’t be independently verified.
🚩 The company has been losing money for a long time with no credible path to profitability.
🚩 The P&L may look fine, but the actual cash flow isn’t strong enough to cover the debt.
🚩 High existing debt.
🚩 Poor collateral — for example, an asset that is already pledged elsewhere, has an unrealistic valuation, or is highly specialised and difficult to resell.
🚩 The company refuses to provide the documents we request.

And so on. There are many other reasons why we might reject an SME, but these are some of the most common ones.

The goal here is to show you what we look for and what we focus on during due diligence.

❗️ Just last month, we had to reject 17 SMEs.

They came from different sectors: manufacturing, agribusiness, logistics, biotech, even education. But we still had to say no.

🤔 What kind of business would you like to see on our platform, but think we’d be very unlikely to list? Drop your ideas in the comments!

What is collateral actually worth?

When it comes to protection, just saying the collateral is worth $1M isn't enough, of course.

❗️ If a borrower defaults, what the business paid for an asset or what it’s worth on the books doesn’t really matter. What matters is how much we can get by selling it.

That’s why we look at the asset type, its condition, liquidity, the secondary market, and how much we might have to discount the price to sell it. The details depend on the business and the type of collateral it provides.

For some projects, we also estimate a more conservative liquidation value.

Next, we look at the LTV (Loan-to-Value) ratio. It shows how large the loan is compared to the value of the collateral.

For example, if the loan is $400,000 and the collateral is valued at $650,000, the LTV is approximately 62%.

The lower the LTV, the bigger the gap between the loan amount and the collateral’s value.

But LTV alone doesn’t guarantee repayment. We also check whether we can seize and sell the asset, whether anyone else has a claim on it, and how much we might recover in the worst-case scenario.

So, the most important thing for us is how much money the asset could bring back to investors if the business’s main cash flow dries up.

⚖️ Do you check the LTV before investing? What LTV feels acceptable to you, and at what point would you walk away?

😉 Share some of your secret tactics in the comments!

🤩 Why do businesses prefer 8lends over bank loans?

For many businesses, the problem isn't that they can't get a loan. They just need capital as soon as possible, often for a specific purpose that doesn't fit rigid banking criteria.

Banks evaluate companies based on a strict set of criteria: credit history, financial reports, time in business, type of collateral, and internal lending limits. Even a strong business might get rejected just because it doesn't fit the bank's criteria.

8lends works differently. We focus on these things:

🔘 Why does the business need the capital?
🔘 How will it use the funds?
🔘 What cash flow will it use to repay the loan?
🔘 What collateral can it provide?
🔘 Can the business generate enough cash flow to repay the debt?

Then there's the matter of speed.

Businesses often need financing for specific purposes: buying equipment, increasing inventory, fulfilling a contract, expanding production, and more. If the loan approval process takes too long, the opportunity might disappear.

In this sense, crowdlending can be more flexible than bank loans.

That doesn't mean our requirements are any less strict. We just focus on a few key things: protecting investors' money, how the business plans to make a profit from the funds it raises, and whether its collateral can cover investors' losses in case of default.

🤩 That's why 8lends can be a much better option for many companies than a bank loan.

If you had a business, what would you choose: funding from 8lends or a bank loan? Share your thoughts!

🤩 WE GAVE AN INTERVIEW AT TOKEN2049!

We talked about how we solve the banking problems small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) face every day.

People don't talk about this enough. That's why we attended this event: to bring more attention to the problem and share how we at 8lends are solving it.

Our approach benefits everyone: SMEs looking for relatively fast funding and people who want to earn a steady APR on their money.

Feel free to listen to what our CCO, Ivan Marchena, had to say in the interview!

😉 Enjoy the video!