From Solvay to Success - Frédéric Lévy Morelle

From which program and class do you come and how did this program influenced the creation of Look&Fin?

I graduated in Business Engineering in 2008 and then took the Master's degree in tax management in 2009-2011. This mix of financial and legal knowledge has enabled me to innovate in a context that was unregulated when Look&Fin was launched, and which has since become highly structured. We became regulated in Belgium in 2017 and have been regulated at European level since June.

 

Which skills learnt during your time at Solvay helped you and still help you the most?

The corporate finance course is the one that really gave me the knowledge I needed to support the structuring of the financing we intermediated.

Can you briefly describe the mission of Look&Fin ?

Look&Fin enables SMEs and real estate professionals looking for financing to raise funds directly from individual investors. Investors invest their savings in the real economy in a useful and profitable way, with an annual return of 4.5% to 13%.

Efficient and fast, Look&Fin enables companies to borrow up to €5 million, while offering them leverage with banks to obtain additional funds. Since its inception, Look&Fin has structured €270 million in loans, financing over 600 SMEs.

In what ways do you believe Look&Fin contributes to society?

We currently have a community of 50,000 members. Our investors invest an average of EUR 30,000 on the platform. Most of them are small investors who want to give meaning to their savings by investing in the real economy. We therefore play an important role in supporting them in their investments and building an optimal portfolio. Many of our investments are also dedicated to renovating buildings. In this way, we are helping to improve their energy performance, and thus contribute to a more sustainable society.

Have you implemented strategies to ensure environmental sustainability and promote sustainable development within LookandFin?

The mission of Look&Fin is to grant credit facilities to local SMEs and projects enabling the rejuvenation of the real estate market. As from 2023, Look&Fin will work to measure positive social and environmental impact so that they qualify to the definition of impact investment, and report back to investors on the improvement results. By 2030, Look&Fin aims to be recognized in the European crowdlending market as a leader in offering measurable impact investments. The ambition is that 70% of products are qualified as impact investments.

The crowdfunding campaign organized in honor of the Solvay Brussels School 120th anniversary is an exciting initiative. How did you get involved?

I was contacted by the school to consider a crowdfunding campaign to mark its 120th anniversary. We then responded to a public tender, which we won. As this is a donation campaign, our role is very different from our business as usual. Our role was to create a white-label platform for the school and is now to ensure that the platform runs smoothly from a technical point of view, while other partners are responsible for promoting the crowdfunding campaign.

What do you think are the advantages of using crowdfunding to support education and innovation, especially for an institution like the Solvay Brussels School?

If the SBS-EM wants to develop and maintain its position in the international rankings, it must be able to rely on external funding. It already has a network of major donors, but the idea here is to provide a platform for smaller donors to make a donation of even a few euros. This practice is widespread among American business schools. The former mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, donated over 850 million euros to the Harvard business school over a period of more than forty years. He began after graduating with a donation of... 5 dollars.

As an alumnus of the Solvay Brussels School and founder of Look&Fin, how do you see the future of educational innovation and collaborative financing?

We regularly recruit alumni from the school and also call on interns. These young graduates are analytical and have a good head for business but they sometimes lack practical knowledge. The curriculum is still very theoretical. I think it would be useful to set up in-company programs as French business schools do for example.

Is there a particular teacher at SBS-EM who had a significant impact on you as a student?

The names of two professors come to mind. Olivier Witmeur who supervised my thesis in entrepreneurship and Eric De Keuleneer with his Investment Banking class.

What do you feel passionate about?

As the CEO of a fintech, my core passions revolve around financial innovation, leadership and team development, technology and digital transformation, market impact, and growth strategy. These areas drive me in the constant pursuit of innovation, improving financial services, developing my team, adapting to new technologies, and sustaining the growth of my company.

How can interested parties support the campaign and find out more about Look&Fin?

To participate in the SBS-EM crowdfunding campaign, simply go to Solvay School 120 , We've made the user experience as simple as possible to facilitate donations. As for Look&Fin, I invite all of you to visit Look & Fin. For all you investment and economics enthusiasts out there, you'll probably discover investments you never knew existed.