Eco-fair telephone provider Wetell collects 700,000 euros from the crowd in 100 minutes

The start-up Wetell is attacking the mobile phone industry with sustainable and fair telephone tariffs. Although it only really started recently, Wetell's offer already goes far beyond what customers often have to put up with on the mobile phone market. The people of Freiburg are currently raising fresh money through crowd investing.

The green telephone provider Wetell has been officially on the market for a few months and has already been able to convince numerous customers of its eco-social orientation. A new website was also unveiled in autumn 2020, containing significantly more information than its predecessor (as well as a personable explainer video).

Wetell: New website with transparent information

Wetell has now officially arrived on the market - at least for us: This is gratifying, since the three founders and their team have had to overcome a number of hurdles since 2018 ( if you want to know more and have not followed our reporting, you will also find it on the website). In the meantime, it was by no means foreseeable whether the attempt to establish a new sustainability standard in the mobile communications industry would succeed.

The goals that the Freiburg start-up had set itself for its telephony offer still sound extremely ambitious: the strictest possible data protection, 100% renewable energies, maximum fairness and transparency and, in general, sustainable, public welfare-oriented management. These are all values with which the mobile communications industry has not been able to shine in the last few decades, which actually do not seem imaginable when you think of Telefónica, Vodafone, Telekom and the like.

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[News] Crowdinvesting successful in a very short time

Wetell's current financing project (see below) started at the beginning of April as quickly as it was over.

As Wetell reported, it took just one hour and 40 minutes to reach the funding goal of 700,000 euros. According to the press release, this is the fastest crowdinvest campaign that has ever existed on the GLS Crowd platform.

Wetell starts crowd investing over 700,000 euros

After the successes of the last few months, Wetell is now faced with the task of raising money for the next steps. Among other things, an app, a new tariff offer for business customers and an even better climate protection concept are planned. Of course, all of this costs money and requires staff that must be (pre)financed.

That's why the telephony start-up would like to encourage its supporters to take their money from their savings account and let it work at Wetell in the next few years. In concrete terms, investors with a focus on sustainability will soon be able to participate in so-called crowd investing for Wetell via the online platform GLS Crowd - which works closely with the green GLS Bank.

From April 8, 2021, investors have the opportunity to invest between 250 and 25,000 euros in Wetell for around five weeks. The promised base interest rate on the money brought in should be 6% per year and – in the case of particularly high sales within the next calendar year – can rise to up to 16%. At the end of 2024, the invested money should be paid back to the investors, interest could be paid out up to four times during the investment period. Overall, Wetell wants to collect up to 700,000 euros from the crowd in this way. At least 400,000 euros must be reached, otherwise the money will go straight back to the (small) investors.

Crowd investing is free of charge for private investors, but - as is otherwise possible with investments - not without risk. Because: Should Wetell become insolvent in the coming years, the money invested would probably be lost because the investments are so-called subordinated loans. This means that in the event of a bankruptcy, all other creditors would first have to be serviced before the crowd (maybe) see some of their money again. If you have any further questions, an understandable FAQ on crowd investing on the Wetell website will help you.

Eco-fair phone provider Wetell collects 700,000 in 100 minutes euros from the crowd

Here you go directly to the Wetell project at GLS Crowd, where you can find more information. The video above gives you a brief overview.

Wetell the second better mobile phone provider

So far only Goood (with three O's) can make a comparable offer to Wetell in this country: the B-Corp-certified telephone provider based in Munich has been attracting customers since 2016 with the Possibility to automatically donate 10 percent of the basic fee to a good cause. Goood was able to show some successes in the first three years, and transparency and climate protection are also very important there - even if Goood has so far focused more on the donation aspect than on its own sustainability concept. With the market entry of Wetell, the range of the 'better' telephone providers has now doubled - the customers should be happy.

Wetell also recently announced which network provider the Freiburg-based company will be working with in the future. Why is this important? As a small company, Wetell cannot bring its own mobile communications infrastructure and is therefore dependent on working with a (larger) partner who already has network access for the foreseeable future. While Goood currently relies on the services of the telecommunications giant 1&1 Drillisch in the same position (and operates accordingly in the Telefonica and Vodafone network), Wetell has opted for the smaller player Tele2, which uses the Vodafone network.

Wetell: This is what the tariffs look like

Wetell had some back and forth with the tariffs, which have changed a few times since 2019. At the market launch, the offered mobile phone offers are now staggered as follows and without crooked sums (prices per month, always with LTE):

In addition, there is a comparatively moderate, one-time setup fee of 10 euros. By default, all tariffs can be canceled on a monthly basis, a nice highlight that was on the start-up's program from the very beginning.

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Comparable O2 tariff is - more expensive!

Are the Wetell tariffs expensive? If you compare a current O2 tariff such as “Free S Boost Flex” (basic offer: 6 GB data LTE; telephony/SMS flat rate; can be canceled monthly) and the comparable offer from Freiburg, the O2 customer even pays 5 euros more in the month than at Wetell. Quite apart from the around 40 euros "connection price" and a consumer-hostile tangle of footnotes at O2, which you also save yourself with the Baden newcomers with the eco-fair approach.

Of course, there are also numerous low-cost tariffs on the market, which offer around two thirds of the costs that Wetell has to charge for a comparable data and telephony volume. For this, Aldi Talk, Smartmobil & Co. but not only no eco-fair services in the luggage (just as little as O2, by the way), consumers* must also be careful with low-cost providers to run into hidden cost traps: A danger of which Wetell - who maintain a transparent pricing policy - have so far not been aware of can be felt.

Wetell promises full eco-fairness

This is also unthinkable for other providers: On the new website, the telephony start-up explains in detail what customers* can get for their money - in addition to a stable network can expect from Wetell. Here are some key points:

More information on Wetell's medium and long-term goals can be found on the website, which is worth visiting. It also clearly shows what percentage of the self-imposed goals the start-up believes it has already achieved. And if you still have questions, you will also find an easy-to-understand, detailed FAQ list on the website.

[Update] These are the plans for 2021

Shortly before the turn of the year 2020/21, Wetell was able to make good news: The start-up has already financed 1,000 installed solar modules, which are located in the Saxon Aue . The modules cover the electricity requirements of around 190 German four-person households. The electricity produced by the Wetell systems is marketed by Naturstrom.

For the telephony start-up, this means above all that an important climate promise can be kept after a short time: to cover the energy requirements of the first 20,000 customers. The capacities will probably be enough - Wetell currently speaks of 3,000 existing customers.

For 2021, the start-up plans to draw up a first common good balance sheet and (legally) transform itself into a so-called purpose company. This would mean that the company could not be resold or inherited in the future - e.g. to maximize profits - but should only continue to pursue its original goals ("purpose"). Ecosia, for example, with which Wetell is in close contact, is already such a company.

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