InRento crosses €100M in financing as European property developers look beyond banks

Founder Gustas Germanavicius says slow bank lending, permit delays, and fragmented cross-border finance are creating new opportunities for alternative real estate platforms.

Traditional real estate investing has historically been difficult for most people to access, requiring large amounts of capital, complex legal processes, and direct property management. 

Cross-border property investing can also be fragmented and difficult to navigate for retail investors. 

InRento aims to solve this by making income-generating real estate investments more accessible through a digital platform that allows users to invest smaller amounts into professionally managed property projects.

InRento is a European real estate crowdfunding platform that lets people invest in income-generating property projects — such as the conversions and retrofitting of existing buildings, often too small or not standard enough for bigger investors, as well as publicly listed companies, like the Alvernia Planet film studio in Krakow, Poland.

The platform focuses on asset-backed, lower-risk real estate investments across European markets, including Lithuania, Poland, and Spain. 

Investors earn returns through rental income and potential capital gains.

It operates as an alternative financing platform that connects investors with medium-sized and large borrowers, including publicly listed companies, providing an alternative to traditional bank financing.

That model has now financed more than €100 million worth of projects across Europe.

I spoke to founder and CEO Gustas Germanavicius to learn all about it. 

A €100 million milestone built during market turbulence

For Germanavicius, what matters is not just the number €100 million but that it represents projects in eight countries with zero defaults. That, he says, is the real KPI, demonstrating disciplined risk management and proving the model can scale across Europe.

Germanavicius founded the company in his early 20s, which he admits was probably the worst possible time to launch a business focused on cash-flow-generating real estate assets.

“We launched in the middle of COVID, then faced the impact of the war in Ukraine, followed by sharp interest rate increases. It felt like there was always another challenge around the corner. But we kept moving forward.”

Those crises also reshaped the wider European financing environment.

Why alternative real estate finance is growing across Europe

In the real estate sector, alternative finance has become far more mainstream. Crowdfunding continues to grow rapidly, alongside private debt funds and bond financing.

According to Germanavicius, this reflects a broader structural issue in European finance: traditional banks are often too slow and inflexible to meet the needs of modern real estate developers, particularly SMEs and more complex redevelopment projects. In some markets, even securing an initial meeting with a bank can take weeks, while financing decisions themselves can take months.

“We’ve financed publicly listed companies with tens of millions of euros in assets because they needed financing within weeks and traditional banks could not move quickly enough,” he said.

Those delays have wider consequences. Developers can spend two, three, or even five years navigating permitting and licensing processes while continuing to carry land and financing costs — expenses that are ultimately passed on to buyers and tenants.

“Real estate lending has become significantly more expensive,” said Germanavicius.

“Debt costs have increased substantially since we launched. At the same time, developers, particularly in Eastern Europe, have become much more sophisticated in how they source capital, with access to more options than ever before.”

InRento positions itself as a faster and more flexible alternative. The platform focuses exclusively on projects that have already secured the necessary development approvals, removing permitting risk from the financing equation.

“I believe this is one of the main reasons we’ve maintained a zero-default track record,” he said.

The challenge of cross-border lending 

Currently, InRento is focused on market traction in Poland and Romania. But one of the biggest problems in Europe when it comes to real estate financing  is that cross-border lending still does not work efficiently. InRento aims to build a genuinely cross-border financing platform.

From the investor side, a single account should provide access to opportunities across Europe without having to navigate different local platforms, languages, or legal systems. For borrowers, financing should be accessible regardless of where they are located.

“I believe no one has truly solved this at scale yet, and that is the opportunity we are pursuing,” shared Germanavicius.

Faster financing, lower permitting risk

While InRento’s financing can be more expensive than traditional bank loans, Germanavicius argues that speed creates significant value for developers.

“Because developers avoid lengthy permitting delays, projects can move much faster,” he said.

“Most of our projects are completed within five to nine months.”

That acceleration, he argues, also has broader urban and housing benefits.

“That speed allows developers to deliver more housing stock to the market, including more affordable housing,” he said.

“Personally, this is important to me from an urban development perspective as well. In many cities, you still see neglected or outdated buildings sitting in prime areas. I want to help make cities more attractive, more liveable, and housing more accessible.”

That opportunity is particularly visible in adaptive reuse projects.

The opportunity in office-to-residential conversions

One of InRento’s areas of activity is office-to-residential conversions. Older office buildings are increasingly inefficient and expensive to maintain, which Germanavicius contends creates a major opportunity for conversions. Instead of leaving outdated office buildings vacant, developers can transform them into residential lofts or apartments. 

“In many of the projects we finance, the final price per square metre is lower than the surrounding market while still delivering newly refurbished housing. This is also where banks tend to underperform.

Many banks simply do not understand these types of projects and lack the internal processes to evaluate them efficiently. A financing decision can take three to six months, which is often too slow for developers. That inefficiency creates significant opportunities for alternative lenders like us.”

Choosing profitability over venture pressure

Today, InRento has a 13-person team operating across Lithuania and its international markets. In April, the company opened an office in Bucharest and launched its first Romanian investment opportunity, marking its expansion into one of Europe’s more underpenetrated real estate markets.

That focus on sustainable expansion also shapes the company’s financing philosophy. 

Recently, Germanavicius bought back shares from an early-stage VC investor after becoming profitable, explaining:

“Our long-term interests were no longer aligned. After becoming profitable, explaining: “Our long-term interests were no longer aligned. Venture investors typically want either rapid fundraising or an exit.

I want to continue building a profitable, independent company.

Our strategy has never been about chasing 10x growth in a single year. Instead, we focus on doubling or tripling steadily while maintaining profitability and operational discipline.”

The “1 per cent better every day” philosophy

Germanavicius  describes his management philosophy as “ improve by one per cent every day.”

“We focus relentlessly on the few things that matter most to clients and continuously improve them. Most progress is incremental, so you do not notice dramatic changes day to day. But over months and years, those small improvements compound into significant growth.”

Inherent to this is simplifying complexity. Early on, InRento had high employee turnover, which taught the importance of systems and onboarding. “

Today, we have a 120-page internal operations document that explains exactly how the company works, who is responsible for what, and how processes should run. It is a living document that the whole team contributes to.”

As InRento expands across Europe, Germanavicius believes disciplined systems — rather than aggressive hypergrowth — will ultimately determine whether cross-border real estate financing can truly scale.