A model of social impact investing based on crowdlending platforms

One of effective business models for performing optimal resource management is sharing economy, which is implemented in the financial sector through the activities of investment platform operators in the form of crowdlending and crowdinvesting. The potential of these forms of cooperation for addressing social issues has not been adequately explored in academic literature. The study aims to propose a model of social impact investing based on crowdlending platforms through the agent-based approach. The foundation of research resides in the concepts of sharing economy and impact investing, as well as the agent-based approach. Statistical analysis methods and BPMN 2.0 (Business Process Model and Notation) were utilized. The efficiency of economic agents’ cooperation on the platforms was determined using simulation modelling in AnyLogic software. Empirical data are retrieved from the RF Register of Investment Platforms Operators, the RF Unified Registry of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, financial statements of social entrepreneurs in Sverdlovsk oblast for 2023–2024, and publicly available data from investment platforms. The architecture of the developed agent-oriented model comprises economic agents interacting on an investment platform, algorithms for their decision-making, and computations of indicators describing social and economic benefits from the form of collaboration under review. The article discusses the impact of state subsidies on the model’s final indicators. Among them, project profitability proved to be the most critical one, which, if increased by 20%, provide an 80% growth in tax revenues to regional budgets. The research findings are instrumental in shaping an institutional environment that stimulates social impact investing in a region.