Massive open online course on alternative finance starts in February

Thousands of start-ups, scaleups and small and medium-sized companies worldwide are increasingly finding capital and investments from new providers, besides those offered by the traditional banking sector. However, it is often difficult for stakeholders to understand how alternative finance works, what are the main differences between the various types of alternative financial services that exist and how to identify a specific alternative finance service that matches the specific needs of a company at the different stages of its development.

This is why, the Altfinator project, funded by the European Union and coordinated by CIVITTA, has prepared a Massive Open Online Courses on Alternative Finance, whose goal is teaching participants to navigate the world of Alternative Finance and Fintech. The course is designed to provide both basic and advanced knowledge about a wide range of different topics: crowdfunding, invoice trading, venture capital, business angels, legal and marketing issues, risk assessment, the fintech revolution and implications for financial markets.

The course comes after the completion of a very successful first edition, in October 2019, which instructed over 1200 participants in Europe and beyond. Like in the prior edition, this course will introduce the key models and approaches related to raising finance from sources alternative to bank lending: crowdfunding, invoice trading, venture capital, business angels, fintech platforms. It will also involve the participants in web-based meetings with experts and enable forum discussion.

The course is useful for a large audience. It is primarily intended for financial advisors and business consultants, who advise SMEs about the best way to acquire capitals on the markets. The course can also be taken by entrepreneurs and startuppers, managers of SMEs, incubators, business development agencies and associations and policymakers or it could be useful for those thinking about investment opportunities in Alternative Finance.

The 3-weeks course is facilitated by Polimi Open Knowledge (POK) and the University of Manchester and it will be head by renowned stakeholders from the Alternative Finance and Fintech world. Ronald Kleverlaan -chairman of Stichting MKB Financiering and founder of CrowdfundingHub – is one of the 19 teachers that are going to lead the training course.

This course is part of a set of activities powered by the Altfinator Project, funded by the European Union, that aims to increase the capacity of the financial ecosystem and its participants for improving innovative SME’s access to alternative forms of finance in Europe.

Check the full list of teachers, topics and agenda of the MOOC at https://altfinator.eu/mooc

Enrolment now OPEN!

For more information related to the services and tools of Altfinator go to www.altfinator.eu