Investments
To invest in a business through Mainvest's platform, you'll need to create an account and link a bank account. Depending on the amount you intend to invest, you may be required to provide additional information for verification and investor protection. Once you confirm an investment, it can take 5-7 business days for the funds to be taken from your account. Once your investment is taken from your personal bank account, it's sent to an escrow account until the business finishes their campaign and moves funds from their escrow account to their business checking account.
If you have invested with a debit card, your investment will not be processed until the close of the campaign, when the investment becomes un-cancellable. This is due to limitations on debit card refunds set by our banking partner.
Refunds and Cancellations
There are a few reasons why your investment may be refunded:
If you choose to cancel your investment, which would need to be done before the 48 hours prior to the end of the campaign
If you do not reconfirm your investment after an amendment has been made to an offering
If the business chooses to close their campaign before it is completed
If the business fails to reach their target goal by the end of the campaign and does not extend
We can only process a refund once the initial transaction has been processed. Once the refund has been processed, it can take 1-3 business days for you to see a refunded investment in your bank account. Therefore, if the transaction hasn't been processed and you request a refund, all in all, it can take 7-10 business days to see those funds returned to your account. If you have invested with a debit card, your cancellation will take place instantaneously, because no funds would have been transferred.
Example 1: You invest and immediately cancel
If for whatever reason you wish to cancel your investment right after it's been initiated, it will likely take 10 days for the refund to be processed. This is because we'll automatically begin processing the investment, and will need that investment to settle before immediately issuing the refund.
Example 2: You invest and weeks later decide to cancel or not reconfirm an investment
Once your investment has been processed, issuing a refund should only take 1-3 business days.
Repayments
Per the terms of the revenue sharing note, businesses are expected to begin making repayments the quarter after they start generating revenue. At the beginning of the new quarter (January for Q4 revenue, April for Q1 revenue, July for Q2 revenue, October for Q3 revenue), businesses are asked to upload a revenue report. They have 25 days to upload this report and make an update before being considered late. Based on the terms of their note agreement, Mainvest calculates the total amount of revenue to be shared with investors, and then calculates how much each investor is owed based on the amount they initially invested. Once the business reports revenue, it can take 5-7 business days for the repayment to reach Mainvest investor accounts.
Once funds are available in Mainvest investor accounts, investors are able to withdraw repayments into their personal accounts. This is to allow investors to control how much they're withdrawing at any given time, especially if they're receiving repayments from multiple businesses and want to withdraw one lump sum. It can take 1-3 business days for funds to reach personal accounts from the Mainvest investor account. This means that it can take up to two weeks from a revenue report to seeing that repayment in your personal account. Bear in mind that if you have invested with a debit card, you will need to link a bank account to receive repayments because our banking partner will not allow us to disperse refunds or repayments via debit card.