Before investing in a crowdlending project, you typically receive between 40 and 80 pages of documents: a commercial brochure, the mandatory KIIS (Key Investment Information Sheet), a financing plan, the SPV articles of association, a notarised guarantee certificate. Knowing what to read first, and what numbers to extract from each document, is half the analytical work.
This guide walks through each document type and maps the key findings directly to the CrowdPickr scoring criteria: 12 factors covering both financial risk and platform quality.
Since November 2023, all PSFP-licensed platforms (European Crowdfunding Service Providers, or ECSP) are required to publish a Key Investment Information Sheet (KIIS, known as FICI in French) for every project. Capped at 6 pages, this document is standardised by EU Regulation 2020/1503: its structure is identical across all compliant platforms.
This is your mandatory first read, every time. The KIIS contains:
Unlike the commercial brochure, it was not written by the marketing team. Read it first, always.
The project brochure (sometimes called a memorandum or presentation deck) is produced by the platform or the developer. It typically contains attractive project visuals, a flattering developer profile, and a focus on the upsides. It is useful for understanding the geographic context and commercial positioning, but should not colour your reading of the factual data.
Practical tip: skim the brochure in 3 minutes to picture the project, then go back to the KIIS and financing plan for the real numbers.
This document breaks down how the operation is funded in full. Look for three figures:
Most real estate crowdlending projects are structured through a dedicated entity: SCI (Société Civile Immobilière), SCCV (construction-and-sale vehicle), or a generic SPV. This legal wrapper isolates the project from the developer's parent balance sheet, which limits cross-contamination in the event of broader group difficulties.
Verify that the entity exists (French SIREN number, searchable free on Pappers or Infogreffe), that it is distinct from the parent company, and that the crowdlending instrument is specifically tied to this entity rather than the holding company.
If the project advertises a first-rank mortgage or a fiducie-sûreté (a French trust-based security), a notarised certificate confirming the actual legal registration of that security should be included in the dossier. Without it, the guarantee is a commercial claim, not an enforceable legal protection.
No certificate on a project announcing a mortgage: flag it as a warning. Ask the platform for written confirmation before subscribing.
A planning permit that has been obtained and cleared of appeals (a two-month challenge period after public posting with no contest) significantly reduces regulatory risk. A permit still under review is a major unknown: administrative delays and refusals are common in French real estate development, and a project can be stalled for months with no work started.
LTV is the ratio of total debt (bank credit plus crowdlending) to the estimated value of the asset or project. Lower LTV means more of a buffer for investors in a forced-sale scenario. CrowdPickr's scoring grid allocates 12 points to this criterion:
A first-rank mortgage means you are repaid before all other creditors in a forced sale of the asset. A second-rank mortgage (behind the bank) only pays you if funds remain after the bank has been made whole. On a distressed project, second-rank creditors frequently receive nothing at all.
Two main structures:
The KIIS explicitly states whether the permit is obtained, cleared of appeals, or still under review. This is one of the most underestimated risk factors among new crowdlending investors, and one of the most frequent triggers of significant delays.
CrowdPickr applies these 12 criteria to every project across two blocks:
Block A: project financial risk (max 45 points)
Block B: operator and platform risk (max 55 points)
Direct penalties apply for the most serious red flags: operator in active insolvency proceedings (-15 pts), platform without verifiable PSFP licence (-10 pts), LTV above 85% (-5 pts), no banking partner on a project above €2M (-5 pts).
See the full methodology for a breakdown of every criterion and its weighting.
Total: under 15 minutes per dossier. The CrowdPickr score then synthesises all of this into a single figure out of 100, so you can compare projects across different platforms on an identical and objective basis.