One in 10 Romanian companies say limited access to finance is holding back growth, nearly double the European average. Supertree and Fagura partner to tackle the issue.

Supertree Workspaces&More, the newest and fastest-growing integrated business ecosystem in north Bucharest, and Fagura, the first crowdlending platform fully authorised by Romania’s Financial Supervisory Authority (ASF) and licensed across the European Union via ESMA, announced a partnership aimed at addressing two of the most persistent challenges facing Romanian businesses: access to quality, flexible workspace and access to fast, accessible business capital.

The partnership establishes a formal collaboration between the two organisations across financing, investment, workspace, and community programming, creating an integrated platform for SMEs, startups, freelancers, and scaling companies operating in or entering the Romanian market.

The financing gap, a barrier to business growth in Romania

Romania’s SME sector accounts for over 99% of all registered businesses in the country. Yet access to business financing remains one of the most cited barriers to growth, with traditional banking processes frequently too slow, too rigid, or structurally inaccessible to early-stage and growth-phase companies.

However, Romania remains below the European average in entrepreneurial density, with only 29 SMEs per 1,000 inhabitants, according to data from Triodos Investment Management. One of the main reasons behind the relatively low number of SMEs continues to be the lack of capital or limited access to financing needed to support business growth.

In Romania, the need for growth financing is becoming increasingly visible: 44% of companies say they plan to invest in expanding their capacity over the next three years, significantly above the European Union average of 26%, showing a strong appetite for growth.

At the same time, 10.2% of companies say that access to finance is limiting their development, almost double the European average of 6.1%, while only 78% of Romanian companies made investments in the past year, below the EU average of 86%. This shows that although the intention to grow exists, access to capital remains one of the main challenges for the local business environment, according to the EIB Investment Survey 2025, conducted by the European Investment Bank.

Crowdlending — the model at the core of Fagura’s platform — offers a fully regulated, digitally native alternative. Businesses submit a funding application online, receive a credit decision within 24 hours, and access capital funded directly by a regulated community of individual and institutional investors, without the need for lengthy bank negotiations or heavy collateral requirements.

With Fagura now fully authorised by the ASF and registered in ESMA’s European crowdfunding service providers register — meaning it is licensed to operate across all EU member states — the infrastructure for this model in Romania is no longer emerging. It is live.

What benefits do companies gain

The Supertree and Fagura partnership operates across three interconnected pillars:

Pillar 1 — Preferential financing access for Supertree’s community. Members, resident companies, and partners within Supertree’s ecosystem will have a direct, facilitated route to Fagura’s crowdlending products, enabling faster, more accessible business financing for companies seeking capital to hire, expand, manage cash flow, or fund strategic projects, entirely outside the traditional banking system.

Pillar 2 — Community investment opportunities. Supertree network will also be able to participate as investors on Fagura’s platform, with the distinctive advantage of being able to back businesses they already know. Fellow community members operating from the same ecosystem. This creates a regulated, transparent framework for community-level investment, turning professional proximity into a genuine financial opportunity.

Pillar 3 — Joint events and programming. Both organisations will co-produce a shared events calendar at Supertree’s landmark BOC Tower venues, including investor briefings, SME finance workshops, panel discussions, and community networking events, connecting both ecosystems and generating cross-community opportunity at the intersection of workspace, capital, and growth.

„This partnership reflects something we believe deeply at Supertree: that access to space and access to resources, including capital, are not separate conversations — they are two sides of the same challenge. The companies that come to us are building real things. They need room to operate and the means to grow. Bringing Fagura into our ecosystem means we can now offer a more complete answer to both, within a community that is already one of the most dynamic in north Bucharest”, explains Anastasia Lucinschi (photo), Head of Marketing & Business Development, Supertree Workspaces&More.

„Fagura’s expansion into Romania has always been about more than replicating a product. It has been about finding the right communities to grow with. Supertree is exactly that: a concentrated, ambitious ecosystem of companies and professionals who understand the value of alternative finance and are ready to use it. Whether they come to us as borrowers looking to accelerate, or as investors looking to put capital to work within a community they trust, the relationship is the same. We are not offering a transaction. We are offering a tool for growth — and Supertree is where that growth is already happening”, points out Adrian Drinceanu (photo), Ecosystem & Growth Manager, Fagura.

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Founded in 2019, Fagura is the first crowdlending platform fully authorised by the ASF (licence nr. PJR28FSFPR/400003, issued 04.09.2023) and registered in the European crowdfunding service providers register maintained by ESMA, authorising it to offer services across all EU member states.

For companies, Fagura offers financing and support, with pre-approval available in just a few seconds. For investors, annual returns range between 10% and 15%, with a minimum entry threshold of EUR 25.

Since its inception, Fagura has intermediated over EUR 20 million in platform investments and financed 3,600 loans, including 961 SME loans and 2,378 freelancer loans. Also, the crowdlending platform distributed over EUR 2.5 million in interest to investors built a community of 2,400 active investors from 30 countries.

Fagura holds a 4.7 out of 5 Trustpilot rating and is backed by USAID, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Fund for Southeast Europe (EFSE), and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).

Since 2024, Fagura has served as a Board Member of the Romanian Fintech Association, and became a member of Startup Moldova in 2025.

Supertree is an integrated business ecosystem headquartered at Globalworth’s BOC Tower (Str. George Constantinescu 3, Floor 3), Pipera, Bucharest. Founded by strategist and entrepreneur, Gianina Crăciun, as a natural extension of Adeco Advisory, multidisciplinary consulting & business development firm (est. 2012), Supertree operates across three business units — Coworking, Business Advisory, and Events — with 2,200 sqm of operational space, and an additional 3,500 sqm under development set to launch by end of 2026-2027.

In less than one year of operations, Supertree is home to over 150 professionals and 30 resident companies, and exclusively operates two landmark event venues on behalf of Globalworth: Cinema Hall (170 PAX) and Conference Hall (120–140 PAX). Supertree’s alliance network spans bilateral Chambers of Commerce, including the Italian, French, and Turkish chambers, leading professional education providers, innovation labs, and industry associations including the Romanian Fintech Association.