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We are known in the market as managers of investment funds tailored for high-net-worth investors — primarily operating in the fields of private debt, real estate, and infrastructure. So naturally, a question arises: why did we decide to enter what, at first glance, seems like a smaller market, primarily targeted at retail investors (or in other words: what the hell brought us into this boat?)
The answer can be both very simple and quite complex. Simply put — it was private debt that led us into the crowdfunding market (note: private debt as an asset class, not debt to a private individual :)).
To answer in a more complex and detailed way: we began investing in private debt more than 10 years ago and believe that we are among the pioneers of private debt funds in Lithuania and the Baltic region. Over this time, we’ve become the largest managers of this asset class in Lithuania, having completed over 50 diverse investments — financing company acquisitions, the expansion of high-tech firms, and providing various forms of financing for real estate development and acquisition projects, among others.
Our private debt fund has become both the largest and most profitable of its kind in the Baltics from its inception up to the time of writing this text. Private debt has become one of the core pillars of our business. We’ve embraced this asset class, believed in it, and learned how to operate successfully within it.
We’ve come to realize that alternative finance… isn’t all that alternative after all. It’s a necessary part of the financial ecosystem.
Without slipping too far into self-praise, over this time we’ve learned a lot. We’ve taken a few hits to the ribs and the chin, faced a few knockdowns in individual investments, but we’ve always stayed in the game — and that has allowed us to elevate our private debt operations to a whole new level, one that meets the standards demanded by institutional investors.
Around the same time the private debt fund market began to take shape, the crowdfunding market also started emerging. We’ve been observing it all along — for a long time, it played (perhaps unfairly) the role of the younger sibling. At that time (around five years ago), the bond market was dormant, and two distinct poles of private debt were forming:
1. Institutional Private Debt Projects:
To execute such deals, you need to be able to lend €3.5M or €7M, have access to fast capital — but paradoxically, this segment has less competition and better debt parameters (borrowers are typically larger companies with stronger capital bases, longer operating histories, and so on);
2. Second-Tier Private Debt
Where not everything is bad, but a large share of the projects are smaller in scale, run by individuals without their own capital, based on very optimistic business model assumptions, and often involve certain legal risks, among other things;
All of this began to change significantly in 2023–2024, when the entire debt market experienced a global renaissance. As interest rates rose and overall market volatility increased, more and more investors and companies turned to fixed-income instruments. The overall market level — in terms of financing volumes and the number of projects — has certainly grown. However, two trends have persisted: real estate projects continue to dominate the crowdfunding market, and amid all the noise of the debt instrument boom, poorly structured and high-risk bond offerings are also finding their way into the market.
That’s exactly how ROIX was born — we realized we could create a platform that combines institutional and private capital, both financially and intellectually. We believe there are significant synergies between these two groups. We don’t see ourselves as just a crowdfunding platform, but rather as a co-investment and syndicated financing platform.
For private investors, we will offer the opportunity to co-invest alongside professional debt investors — knowing that our structured opportunities have been reviewed not only by us but also by other institutional investors — in projects that were previously inaccessible through traditional platforms. For institutional investors, we’ll provide convenient solutions to diversify their portfolios and participate as anchor investors in large syndicated deals.
We aim to leverage our direct investment experience across asset classes (real estate, infrastructure, private equity) to expand the range of debt opportunities in the business sector — and to analyze potential investments not just from a lender’s perspective, but from an investor’s point of view.
We are investors. You are investors. That’s why ROIX is a place built by investors — for investors.
Benas Poderis, Founder of ROIX