Ventus Energy Review

Ventus Energy is an Estonian-Latvian platform for energy project loans that stopped paying out investors in May 2026 and has announced court-supervised restructuring. p2p-investments.de rates Ventus Energy D (2.0/10) with medium data coverage - new investments are not possible anyway, as new business has been discontinued. This article is written primarily for the more than 6,000 existing investors: it traces what happened, what may happen to the money, and which steps make sense now. How we arrive at this grade is explained in our rating methodology.

What is Ventus Energy and who is the platform for?

Ventus Energy is not a lending marketplace but the funding arm of an energy group: investors lend directly to the Estonian company Ventus Energy Group OÜ, which uses the money to buy and operate heat plants, solar parks, wind and battery-storage projects in the Baltics. In return, it promised 16 to 24% interest depending on project and bonus tier, credited daily. From its launch in September 2024 the platform raised €96.2 million (as of July 2026) - Germany was its largest market, accounting for roughly half the volume.

The question of who the platform is for has answered itself for now: there have been no new projects since 11 June 2026, German money may not be accepted since the BaFin order, and deposited capital is frozen. The platform remains relevant for two reasons: for existing investors who want to know where they stand - and as a case study of what double-digit interest promises without supervision really mean.

What happened at Ventus Energy?

The case built up over eight months. The chronology in detail:

24 October 2025 - Latvian regulator's warning list. Latvijas Banka lists Ventus Energy Group OÜ among 15 companies providing investment services without the required licence - with the explicit note that such investments are not covered by the Investor Protection Law and carry "the risk of irretrievable loss".

2 December 2025 - investigation documents manipulation. The finance blogger behind karsten.me publishes an investigation establishing three things: a property valuation report for the former Crowdestor office that had been rewritten to "Ventus Energy OU" via PDF editing and distributed to investors (the file's edit history, tagged with the CEO's username, was still visible); asset purchases from the founder's circle at questionable valuations - such as the "Powerhouse Dambis" biomass plant bought for €6.36 million despite a 2024 profit of €88,309 and an estimated fair value of €0.88 to €1.25 million; and loan agreements that allowed unquantified "fees and costs" to be deducted from investor money before it reached the project.

5 May 2026 - BaFin orders wind-up. BaFin determines by decree that Ventus Energy conducts unauthorised deposit-taking in Germany (unconditionally repayable public funds without bank-standard collateral, section 1 of the German Banking Act) and orders the business to cease immediately and the accepted funds to be repaid without delay. Investors do not learn this from the platform: eight days after receiving the decree, a Ventus email of 13 May speaks merely of a "constructive dialogue with relevant regulatory stakeholders" making the German business "temporarily unavailable". The order only becomes public with BaFin's announcement on 18 May.

25 May 2026 - withdrawals freeze. Payment provider Paysera restricts outgoing payments from Ventus accounts; investors have been unable to access their money since.

11 June 2026 - restructuring announced. Ventus announces in a message to investors court-supervised restructuring under the Estonian Reorganisation Act (Saneerimisseadus) - comparable to a US Chapter 11 process. Concretely: no new loans, all interest payouts stopped (interest is only credited to accounts), the early-exit feature suspended and pending exit requests cancelled. As reasons the company cites the BaFin order, disrupted banking and payment infrastructure, and "targeted disruptive activities" over which criminal proceedings were said to be underway in Estonia - without naming case numbers or parties. Management announces a comprehensive repayment plan with scenarios and timelines for 10 July 2026; repayment is to be funded entirely through the structured sale of the energy assets.

16 June 2026 - investor call with shrinking numbers. Where a PDF distributed at year-end 2025 had put the assets at €193 million, the call speaks only of "more than €100 million" - documented in the karsten.me investor guide. By late June, the announced restructuring petition had moreover not yet been filed with the court.

10 July 2026 - shareholders' meeting. Per a CEO announcement in the official Telegram channel, shareholders approved several restructuring steps: the restructuring and protection documentation is first to go to the appointed legal advisers for review - only after their approval is the application to be filed with the competent Estonian court; a court filing therefore still had not happened. Also approved: an internally developed restructuring plan with four possible scenarios and a targeted repayment period of 2 to 5 years, via restructuring measures and the sale of the assets. New as well is a "Restructuring Committee" of more than 20 lenders, industry experts and opinion leaders: it is to receive regular updates directly from the Ventus team, review non-public documents (such as Paysera correspondence) and meet at least semi-weekly via Zoom. Participation is voluntary, but discussions are confidential under NDA - for the wider lender community this means deeper insight stays limited to a select, NDA-bound circle, while everyone else continues to receive only general updates. Concrete repayment figures or a court order remain outstanding - the announcement is a company statement, not an externally verified commitment.

As of 11 July 2026, the picture is: the repayment plan targeted for 10 July was approved internally but not published in detail, and the court filing is still pending. We will update this article as more details become available.

How does Ventus Energy work?

The most important difference from marketplaces like Mintos: with Ventus you are not funding loans to third parties - you are lending your money directly to the platform group itself. In an interview with p2pmarketdata (October 2025), the CEO described the model as an "energy production company" that "uses an online platform to attract mezzanine capital". Projects had to be selected manually (from €1,000 per project, no auto-invest), and interest was credited and compounded daily. There was never a secondary market; the only route to early liquidity was the platform's own early-exit feature, through which a cumulative €14.2 million - 14.8% of the funded volume - flowed back by July 2026. Since 11 June 2026 it, too, has been suspended.

The group never held a licence: no ECSP crowdfunding authorisation, no investment firm status, no banking licence. Ventus argued that as a closed funding arrangement the model required no authorisation - BaFin saw plain unauthorised deposit-taking, and Latvijas Banka unlicensed investment services.

Subordinated behind senior debt: what mezzanine means for investors

The platform's own statistics page openly classifies investor capital as mezzanine capital - and that classification now decides the repayment odds. Mezzanine means: in the creditor hierarchy, investors rank behind secured senior loans but ahead of equity. If the assets are sold, roughly €10 million of senior debt is serviced first; only then do the roughly €82 million of investor claims come up. The buffer reported as "debt free equity" of about €24 million rests solely on the company's own statements - it was never externally audited.

What kinds of loans does Ventus Energy offer?

Funding went exclusively to the group's own projects, in three categories: heat plants (biomass and combined heat and power - by its own account the group was at times the largest private heat supplier in Riga), solar parks and wind plus battery-storage (BESS) projects in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. A typical example: the acquisition of an operational 2.66 MW solar park near Valmiera (Latvia) at 17% annual interest with daily compounding and a maturity running to October 2028.

On loan availability the situation is unambiguous: since the restructuring announcement, no new projects have been offered - there is nothing left to invest in.

Is Ventus Energy a scam?

The short, honest answer: as of July 2026 there are no publicly known fraud charges against Ventus Energy or its officers. The documented regulatory accusation is a different one - operating a deposit-taking and investment business without a licence. That is a legal violation with tangible consequences (a wind-up order, a repayment obligation), but not an established fraud. A sober assessment requires looking at both sides of the evidence.

What speaks against a pure exit scam: the assets exist and operate. The statistics page reports monthly energy production and revenue - over 20,000 MWh in winter months and most recently €1.4 to €1.8 million in monthly revenue. A fraudster who only wants to collect money does not usually build heat plants that actually supply Riga with heat.

What causes concern is the other side. First, the documented incidents: the valuation report rewritten to Ventus, the hidden fees, the asset purchases from the founder's circle at prices far above plausible valuations - all backed by documents. Second, the people involved: founder and majority owner Jānis Timma previously ran the P2P platform Crowdestor, whose investors never got back around €41 million - partly at the same Riga address. Third, the numbers themselves: according to the Estonian business register the company has filed no annual report for either 2024 or 2025, and the communicated asset values shrank within months from €193 million to "more than €100 million".

And finally, the uncomfortable arithmetic: all assets combined generated around €8.6 million in revenue in 2025 - not profit, but revenue before fuel, staff and all other costs. The computed interest burden on the most recent €82 million of mezzanine capital exceeded €1.1 million per month, reaching the same order of magnitude as total revenue. That proves no Ponzi scheme - but it shows a business model that could only carry interest at this level as long as fresh investor money kept flowing in.

Whether all this amounts to mismanagement, self-dealing or more is for regulators and courts to determine. For an investor's assessment, something simpler suffices: the platform was not verifiably honest - and it can only earn back trust if the announced repayment plan arrives, is plausible and is kept.

Will Ventus Energy investors get their money back?

The honest answer: open - anything from a meaningful recovery to a total loss is possible. Three factors will decide.

First, what the assets are worth. Repayment is to be funded entirely from the sale of the energy portfolio. Whether the proceeds cover the more than €94 million owed to investors depends on valuations that were never audited and shrank markedly within months. The Dambis example - bought for €6.36 million against an estimated fair value below €1.3 million - is a warning not to take the platform's own numbers at face value.

Second, the rank of the claim. Investors are mezzanine creditors: senior loans are serviced first, then them. On the plus side, other large creditors appear limited based on the published figures, and the BaFin order gives German investors an indisputably due claim.

Third, the process itself. The announced Estonian restructuring keeps management in charge under court supervision. The repayment plan needs approval from creditors holding at least two thirds of the claim value - and, important to know: not voting effectively works like a no-vote. Historically, only around 13% of Estonian restructuring cases ended with an approved plan. If the plan fails, insolvency usually follows - at which point an independent trustee takes over, with the power to review and claw back transactions of past years (such as the purchases from the founder's circle).

What you can do now as an existing investor:

• Document everything: preserve loan agreements, account statements and every platform communication - you will need the evidence for the proceedings and later for the tax office. Read here how to claim losses for tax purposes.
• Quantify and register your claim: record how much principal and accrued interest you are owed, and respond to procedural notices within the deadlines.
• Take part in votes: whether you support the plan or not - staying silent is the worst option, because it counts against the plan without representing your interests.
• Consider a criminal complaint: a complaint for operating banking business without authorisation is free and rests on facts already established by regulators. The karsten.me investor guide provides templates.
• Weigh legal fees soberly: German law firms are currently marketing Ventus mandates aggressively, for instance for asset-seizure procedures. That can make sense in individual cases, but it costs money with no guarantee of success - especially for small investments, set the fee against the size of your claim.

How we rate Ventus Energy

We rate five criteria with fixed weights; the breakdown above summarises the scores. The grade D (2.0/10) is the lowest we have awarded so far - here is the reasoning with evidence (as of July 2026).

Safety & regulation (2/10). There is no licence in any EU country - instead, two negative regulatory actions: the Latvijas Banka warning list and the BaFin wind-up order. Investors hold unsecured, subordinated claims against an OÜ with €4,166 share capital, with no asset segregation and no protection mechanism of any kind. The assets belong to group companies, not to investors.

Transparency (2/10). The granular statistics page and the publicly named management are more than many unregulated providers offer - but none of it is externally verified: per the Estonian register, no annual report was filed for 2024 or 2025. Add the documented doctored valuation report, hidden fees, asset figures that shifted by months and magnitudes (€193 million vs. "more than €100 million") and the whitewashed investor email after the BaFin order. At its core, the use of funds cannot be verified.

Track record & stability (2/10). Operating with investor money only since September 2024 - and already in its second year the incidents pile up: warning list, BaFin order, frozen payment accounts, stopped interest and exit payments, announced restructuring. Whether the company was ever profitable is unknown for lack of filed accounts; the rapid growth from €65.8 million to more than €94 million within five months suggests payouts depended substantially on fresh capital.

Returns & terms (2/10). The advertised 16 to 19.2% base interest plus bonuses was a risk signal, not a selling point: in 2025 the revenue of all assets, at around €8.6 million, barely reached the order of magnitude of the interest burden - before any operating costs. Realised returns were never published; since June 2026 nothing is being paid out at all. The actual return of most investors is not yet settled and may end up deeply negative.

Investor experience & liquidity (2/10). Deposited money genuinely cannot be retrieved at present: withdrawals frozen, early exit suspended, no secondary market, no auto-invest, €1,000 minimum investment. The one bright spot is communication - the CEO answers investor questions directly and regularly in the official Telegram channel.

We will re-rate the platform once the repayment plan is published and can be measured against actual delivery. A platform that demonstrably handles a crisis like this in an orderly way can improve in our rating - but nothing is promised.

Data coverage and open questions

Our grade rests on 17 of 25 evidence questions that could be answered from reliable sources - data coverage: medium. Unusually for a platform in crisis, the facts of the accusations are well documented (BaFin decree, register data, forensically backed investigations). What remains open are the central valuation questions: there is no audited - or even filed - annual report, the reported equity buffer and asset values are self-declared, any skin in the game by the founders cannot be verified, and no information is available on tax reporting. The most important open question is also the decisive one: what the energy assets will actually fetch in a sale.

Ventus Energy reviews from the P2P community

Since May 2026 the community discussion around Ventus has naturally been dominated by the crisis - and it takes place primarily where the company itself is present: in the official Telegram channel. Something stands out there that is rarely seen at collapsing platforms: CEO Henrijs Jansons answers investor questions personally, regularly, and even when they are uncomfortable. Many investors credit him for that directness - but it is also the only thing currently flowing: answers, not money. The same leadership had sold investors the BaFin order as a "constructive dialogue" in May.

Older, positive reviews deserve extra caution: the karsten.me investigation documented in December 2025 that seven P2P bloggers had been given equity stakes through an options vehicle - five of them recommended the platform without disclosing the stake. Since the payment freeze, forums and review portals have been dominated by reports of frozen withdrawals, and German law firms are marketing Ventus mandates in series. Reviews in either direction are no evidence for or against a recovery - the decisive facts sit in the proceedings, not in testimonials.

Who is Ventus Energy for?

For new investors the question does not arise: there is nothing to invest in, and our D rating (2.0/10) speaks for itself. Even if the platform were to reopen someday: without a licence, audited figures and a credibly wound-down legacy book, an investment would be a bet, not an investment.

For existing investors the situation is different - what remains is active claims management: document, meet deadlines, take part in votes and follow the platform's communication critically (see above). As a general rule, this case painfully illustrates what always applies to P2P lending: only invest money you can afford to lose, and diversify across platforms and segments - the fundamentals are covered in our article P2P lending basics.

What are the alternatives to Ventus Energy?

The lesson from this case is not to avoid P2P lending - it is to read the price tags correctly: 16 to 24% interest without a licence, without asset segregation and without audited figures was never a gift, but the price of exactly the risk that is now materialising. Why high interest systematically means high risk is the subject of our article returns and risks of P2P lending - with Ventus Energy as its case study.

If you want to invest in a regulated setting instead, the platform comparison lists providers with more realistic returns of 8 to 12% and real supervision: Mintos (rated A, 8.0/10) is the investment firm regulated by Latvijas Banka with the broadest diversification and segregated client assets. If, as with Ventus, you are drawn to real tangible assets, look at Lande (rated B, 7.7/10) - ECSP-licensed agricultural loans secured by land and machinery at an average 43% loan-to-value - or at InSoil (rated B, 7.0/10). For regulated business loans there is Capitalia (rated B, 7.5/10) with a track record since 2007. Our comparison currently lists no regulated P2P platform dedicated to energy projects - that was the niche Ventus occupied, with the outcome now on record. If you find such a platform elsewhere, check the licence and the rank of your claim first - precisely the two points Ventus investors are suffering from now.