Master thesis: What makes Nordic retail investors choose impact crowdfunding?

About Trine
Trine is a Gothenburg-based platform, founded in 2015. Retail investors, mainly Swedish, lend to clean-energy companies in emerging markets. About 15,000 people have invested about EUR 118 million.

The question
Crowdfunding volumes have fallen. In Finland they went from EUR 377 million in 2021 to EUR 24 million in 2024. Our own number of new investors has fallen too. Why? Is the group of Nordic retail investors willing to lend to unlisted impact projects smaller, and what does it take to win them?

What you will do

• Map the Nordic impact-investing ecosystem: who is involved, how capital flows, where Trine sits.

• Size the addressable market for retail impact lending (low, base and high case).

• Find out what makes an investor choose Trine over the alternatives, through interviews and a survey.

• Optional: spend a few weeks with our team in Nairobi to see how an investment becomes impact.

You deliver
The thesis, an ecosystem map, an editable market-size model, and recommendations presented to the Trine team.

You are
A business-oriented student who likes digging into data and people.

Practical
One or two students, 20 weeks (30 ECTS), probably spring 2027, with visits at Trine in Gothenburg. You get weekly supervision from a named Trine contact. Trine can’t pay a fee, and students seek travel funding for Nairobi through their university.