It is not possible to talk about GoParity's story without mentioning Nuno Brito Jorge's, GoParity’s CEO & Co-founder. In 2009, Nuno moved back to Portugal after having lived abroad for a few years and was looking for an ethical banking alternative to receive his salary. He quickly realized that this option did not exist and was forced to open an account at a traditional bank, which would use his money to finance projects that were not in line with his values.

Shortly thereafter, he joined a group of friends to buy and install a small photovoltaic plant on the roof of a rural tourism house owned by his family in the south of Portugal. When realizing that the group would not be able to raise the €30,000 needed to install the plant, they created a scheme in which the “investors” would receive interest on the loan, which would be higher the longer its term. With this model, fundraising was quick and that's how he realized that there could be a business model there. 

Nuno then started researching crowdlending for solar energy. Feeling that the project lacked a social component, Nuno began to approach charities to implement the model that, in addition to the positive environmental benefits, would contribute to reducing these organizations' electricity costs, money that could then be used to improve the services they provide. APPCDM Lisbon thus became the first unofficial promoter of GoParity.

The name “GoParity” results from the definition of “grid parity”, which occurs when electricity from a renewable energy source such as the sun, costs the same or less than electricity from traditional fossil fuels and the application of the term “ parity” to equal access to opportunities (in this case of investment or financing). 

GoParity is a crowdlending platform in Portugal offering not only the possibility of receiving return from one’s investments, with an average return of 5%, but also the opportunity to create a positive, measurable impact while doing so. Having funded over 140 sustainable projects worldwide amounting to over 10M€ with the support of a registered community of 18.000 people and companies, the journey has been a fruitful one. 

So, everyone over 18 years old can register in the website and become an impact investor in solar energy, circular economy, social entrepreneurship and/or sea economy or, if owning a company/organization, apply for a loan through our platform as well.