Alt Goes Mainstream: The Latest on Alternative Investments, WealthTech, & Private Markets

Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have a guest who may be young in age, but has already done more and lived through more than many people twice his age.

Anthony Zhang recently turned 26 but has already successfully built and sold two companies, secured funding from Mark Cuban, and received a Thiel Fellowship grant before starting Vinovest, his third company, which is making it easier to access fine wine as an investment product.

He also has an admirable and awe-inspiring personal story, working hard to come back from a devastating accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down. He was in the middle of running his second company, EnvoyNow, when this accident happened and, despite the tremendous adversity he faced, was able to continue to build the business and achieve a successful sale.

Anthony recently founded Vinovest, a platform that has been described as the Robinhood of wine investing. He’s built an investment platform that is unlocking wine investing to the masses. 

We had a fascinating conversation. We talked about: 

• Anthony’s background as an entrepreneur.
• Some of the lessons learned from starting 3 companies by the ripe old age of 26.
• How fine wine can be a compelling investment during periods of volatility.
• How to identify an investment-grade wine
• Some of his favorite wines (that he drinks and invests into!).

Wine as an investment has been largely inaccessible to the individual investor due to high account minimums, a lack of wine expertise, concerns about fraud, and the excessive costs associated with storing and insuring wine. Vinovest is abstracting away many of these issues with their automated investment platform that helps investors invest into fine wine as an asset class.

Thanks Anthony for coming on the AGM podcast. We hope you enjoy this episode.

Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have one of the OGs of the crowdfunding space on to talk about how he’s built platforms that have evolved in tandem with the alts ecosystem.

Slava Rubin is the founder of both Indiegogo, one of the first crowdfunding platforms, and Vincent, a platform that is making discovery and alternative investments easier for investors. He is also the founder of humbition, an early-stage investment firm.

We had a fascinating conversation about the evolution of the alts space – from the early days of equity crowdfunding to now wading through all the different options of investment platforms in the alts space today. We talk about:

• The evolution of the alts space.
• The alts portfolio of the future.
• The need for an aggregator – and how once other industries, like travel, had an aggregator, the space took off.

Slava founded Indiegogo in 2006. He grew Indiegogo from an idea to over 500,000 campaigns and more than $1 billion distributed around the world. While at Indiegogo, Slava represented the crowdfunding industry at the White House during the signing of the JOBS Act and helped navigate bringing equity crowdfunding to the American public.

Slava also pioneered security tokens in the US. He created a way to sell fractionalized ownership of the St. Regis hotel in Aspen, Colorado using blockchain technology.

Slava’s latest work in the alts space is to bring transparency, discovery, and diligence to investors. He’s founded Vincent, which he’s likened to Kayak for alternatives, to enable investors to easily search, discover, and invest into all sorts of alternative assets.

Thanks Slava for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast. We hope you enjoy.

Today we have a special episode of Alt Goes Mainstream – the co-founders of Rally on to discuss how people can now invest into defining cultural moments and assets that are aligned with their passions.

Chris Bruno and Rob Petrozzo grew up together – and they have combined their respective talents to form what has become one of the symbols for the financialization of all sorts of assets.

Rally, which started as a platform to enable investors to invest into shares of classic cars that would be unattainable to many investors, has become a multi-asset investment platform that allows individual investors to invest into all sorts of exotic, rare assets at low minimums.

Chris, Rob, and I had a fascinating conversation about how Rally built and evolved their concept from classic cars to all sorts of rare, grail assets. We discuss:

• How they got into collectibles themselves.
• How they’ve waded through complex regulatory structures to figure out how to offer these assets to the masses.
• How they grew up together and have now built a company that aligns with their passions.
• And how on earth they were able to IPO a triceratops skull and IPO a rookie card of the United States (hint: the Declaration of Independence).

Chris, Rob, and team have created a leading fractional investing platform for the alternatives space. They recently raised a $30 million round led by Accel, who invested in GOAT, to help propel their marketplace further.

Rally has already achieved an active, engaged, and passionate userbase of over 200,000 investors who have invested in everything from Pele rookie cards to classic cars to dinosaur heads to, soon, the Declaration of Independence, or a rookie card of the United States of America as Rally investor and Upfront Ventures Partner Greg Bettinelli has called it.

Chris, the Co-Founder and President, comes from the VC and startup worlds. 

He was an Associate at Village Ventures before co-founding two companies, Health Guru Media and Spotter. He’s a classic car enthusiast, which ignited his interest in unlocking the asset class to individual investors.

Rob, the Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer, has been the creative inspiration behind Rally.

He has brought his background as the in-house lead designer and creative consultant for Sony BMG, where he worked on the likes of Kanye West’s GOOD music imprint, and as the creative director for a few startups to bring Rally’s brand to life in person and in the digital world. 

Rally has also done some really interesting things with their brand, opening up a showroom to their investors, creating and offering stock certificates to their investors, and creating exclusive merch drops (including the limited edition Michael Jordan rookie card sweatshirt that I wore for today’s podcast). 

Thanks Chris and Rob for coming on the AGM podcast. We hope you enjoy today’s episode.

Today, we have an expert in lending and capital markets on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast to discuss how his company, Pipe, is building a new asset class.

Michal Cieplinski is the Chief Business Officer for Pipe, a fast growing fintech company.
 

Pipe has seen a rapid rise over the past year. They are one of the fastest fintech companies to reach a $2 billion valuation – and it’s in large part because investors see the potential to build a platform that unlocks recurring revenue as an investable asset class for the world’s largest institutional investors.

Michal deeply understands the inner workings of credit and lending on both the borrower and lender side from his experiences helping to build Fundbox, LendingClub, and now Pipe.

Pipe was born from the idea that entrepreneurs and companies should be able to grow their businesses on their terms – without taking debt or dilution. 

This was a fascinating discussion with someone who has seen the evolution of a number of lending platforms. Michal and I discussed:

• Lessons learned from building marketplace fintech businesses.
• How Pipe is empowering founders to adopt a trader mentality by unlocking recurring revenue as an asset class. 
• How Pipe is creating an efficient way for companies to turn their predictable revenue streams into a way to access capital without sacrificing dilution.
• How Pipe is building out both the buy side and sell side of their marketplace.
• How Pipe handles churn on SaaS contracts of their sell side borrowers.
• How he thinks about the evolution of Pipe as a platform in terms of the types of assets you would "pipe" and how any sort of recurring revenue stream - like ISPs, streaming services, even PE / VC fund management fees could be "piped."

Thanks Michal for coming on the AGM podcast. We hope you enjoy.

Today, we have our first LatAm guest on the AGM podcast. And it was a special one.

Bitso, LatAm’s leading crypto exchange, is fresh off of raising a $250M round led by Tiger Global months after raising a $62M round led by QED and Kaszek - and has been minted as one of LatAm’s newest unicorns.

We had Bitso’s co-founder and CEO Daniel Vogel on to talk about what it has been like to build a leading FinTech company in the region and provide access to investments and financial services.

This was such a fun conversation. We could have gone on for hours. Daniel is such a compelling and fascinating storyteller. We discussed a number of things including:

• How Daniel has dedicated his life to unlocking monetary freedom for people through crypto.
• How a talk with his friend, a janitor at his company in Silicon Valley, opened his eyes to the need for real applications of crypto to help people send money cross-border.
• The origins of Bitso and how Bitso was a pioneer of an online brokerage account in Mexico.
• How Bitso has become the on-ramp for financial services for many consumers across LatAm.
• The meaning behind Bitso’s slogan #makecryptouseful.
• The power of stablecoins and how it’s enabling people in countries with inflation and currency fluctuations to save money.
• How Bitso balances being a centralized company in a decentralized world.
• How religion and community play a unique role in crypto.

Daniel is an early crypto pioneer and a thought leader in the space. He became intrigued by the idea of bitcoin well before many other people had heard of it and really thought of crypto as a way to unlock monetary freedom and access to financial services for the underserved.

After founding the Bitcoin Club at Harvard in 2013 while he was doing his MBA, Daniel founded Bitso with co-founders Pablo Gonzalez and Ben Peters soon after he left Harvard Square. 

In Bitso, Daniel and his co-founders Pablo and Ben have created the on-ramp for financial services to many consumers in Mexico and across LatAm.

As Daniel said in a recent TechCrunch interview, the growth of the crypto ecosystem in LatAm has been nothing short of remarkable. It took Bitso six years to get their first 1 million clients. And over the course of 2020, Bitso has surpassed the 2 million client mark. They have also doubled their assets on the platform. And their transaction volume during the first quarter of 2021 exceeded transaction volume for all of 2020.

It is clear that Daniel has a passion for building out the cryptoeconomy and for making a difference in people’s lives, so much so that Bitso has made their tagline #makecryptouseful.

Thanks Daniel for coming on the AGM podcast. We hope you enjoy this episode.

Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have a domain expert in the world of VC – and someone who has been a visionary when it has come to one of the biggest movements in VC over the past 8 years: emerging managers.

Samir Kaji, the Founder & CEO of Allocate, is a well-respected industry leader in the VC world. He has spent over 20 years partnering with VCs at First Republic Bank and Silicon Valley Bank, where he led the Venture Capital and Private Equity banking efforts. At First Republic, he built out the infrastructure and client base that served the VC and PE community. He’s evaluated over 800 VC fund managers and worked with thousands of LPs at First Republic.

Samir and I had a fascinating conversation about the evolution of venture capital and what's to come for the industry. He’s seen a lot in his career in Silicon Valley that has spanned multiple market cycles. He shared his perspective on:

• The challenges that GPs and LPs face during fundraising.
• Why the structural inefficiencies of allocating to funds - and perceived risks with emerging managers - led so many LPs to miss out on the Fund I’s of now legendary emerging managers Lowercase Capital, K9, and Initialized Capital.
• The case for emerging managers in a venture portfolio and why emerging managers are the future of venture capital.
• The trend of non-institutional capital coming into the venture world.
• How LPs will be able to better discover and allocate to fund managers in the future.

In his time in Silicon Valley, he’s become an unquestioned thought leader in the world of VC, particularly in the emerging manager space. 

He has consistently written seminal thought pieces and instructional guides on the topic – and now talks about the space with his podcast, Venture Unlocked.

His experiences working with many of the top VC funds and LPs globally has culminated in a journey that he’s now starting by founding Allocate.

He has observed a number of inefficiencies with emerging managers when it comes to firm building and capital raising. 

He’s seen many emerging managers struggle with fundraising due to the difficulties finding the right LPs. 

He’s seen the challenges that LPs have with being able to locate and allocate to new emerging managers, many of whom have gone on to outperform benchmarks and become the next generation of brand name firms.

He believes that the ecosystem is ready for a decentralized, democratized, and diverse ecosystem of fund managers. And Allocate is the connective tissue that will solve these challenges for both GPs and LPs alike. 

Thanks Samir for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast to share your wisdom about the world of venture. 

Today we have a guest who is bringing farmland investing to the masses. 

After working for one of Canada’s largest pension plans, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, and running Operations and as the CFO at a platform for buying and selling produce, Artem Milinchuk founded FarmTogether to bring an asset that has largely been the domain of institutional investors to individuals. 

Artem and I had a fascinating conversation. We discussed: 

• How farmland deserves a place in all investors’ portfolios – in large part due to its features as a hedge against inflation and a passive income generating investment.
• How to underwrite a farmland asset.
• How he one day envisions the ability to invest into farmland embedded directly into one’s brokerage account.
• He also made a great case for how we can eat our way into supporting farmland investments, like hazelnut farms, which happen to be some of the types of farms that Artem likes to invest into.

FarmTogether is a technology-enabled farmland investment platform that provides investors with direct access to US farmland as an asset class. They have developed an end-to-end investment platform that allows investors to review carefully vetted farmland investments and invest in properties.

Artem has over 10 years of finance experience in food, agriculture, and farmland. Prior to founding FarmTogether, Artem was the first employee and CFO / VP of Operations at Full Harvest Technologies, a post-Series A b2b platform for buying and selling produce.

In addition to working at Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, he also worked at Sprott Resource Holdings, E&Y, and PwC. 

Thanks Artem for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast. I hope you enjoy the conversation with Artem.

Today we have one of the pioneers of the European tech ecosystem on to discuss how the European early-stage VC landscape has changed since its early days – and how their fund, Passion Capital, has unlocked access to investors with their latest fundraise.

Eileen Burbidge, a Founding Partner of Passion Capital, and I had a fascinating conversation about all things VC, opening up access to the asset class to individual investors, what it means for the future of venture capital, and Eileen’s love of Arsenal and why she’s not a fan of the European Super League.

Eileen has built a reputation as the go-to VC for seed stage companies in the UK and Europe – and for good reason.

Her aptly named fund, Passion Capital, has built a name for itself as one of the top early-stage funds in the UK because of her passion for rolling up her sleeves, much like she did in her days as an operator at Skype, Apple, Yahoo!, and Sun Microsystems.

I won’t forget when we met last year at her office – she had just stepped out of non-stop meetings with one of her growth-stage companies, where she was helping them figure out team and talent questions.

Not every seed stage VC has the ability to stay involved as their companies grow nor does this type of work, but that’s what separates Passion from the pack.

Eileen is just as much at home in her office, which doubles as a co-working space for Passion portfolio companies, as she is in 10 Downing Street, where she has been named the UK Treasury’s Special Envoy for FinTech, has been appointed by the Chancellor as the Chair of Tech Nation, and was awarded an MBE in the 2015 Queen’s Birthday Honors for her services to businesses.

So maybe it’s no surprise why she’s been described as “The Queen of British VCs” by Fortune Magazine.

She’s certainly backed many of the British startup royalty at early-stage, being a Seed investor in Monzo Bank, where she still serves on the board, Tide Bank, GoCardless, Digital Shadows, Marshmallow, Butternut Box, and a number of others.

Eileen has also had an illustrious career as an operator, working for Apple, Yahoo, and Sun Microsystems in the early days of the internet before moving to London in 2004 to become one of Skype’s earliest employees and Head of Product. 

She then founded Passion in 2011 as one of the first Seed funds in London, serving a critical market need for the entrepreneurial ecosystem in London. 

She’s now trailblazing once again by being one of the first funds to open up their LP base to the crowd, where they have partnered with Seedrs to allow individuals to invest into Passion’s latest fund.

She’s also an independent non-executive board director at Dixons Carphone, a 10B pound revenue electrical and telecoms retailer and on the Transformation & Innovation Advisory Board at UniCredit.

Thanks Eileen for being a pioneer in the European VC ecosystem and bringing innovative structures in venture capital to LPs.

I hope you enjoy.

Today we have a special guest who is one of the foremost leaders in the alternatives industry.

Bill Kelly is the CEO of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst Association (CAIA), the leading global educational and professional credentialing body dedicated to delivering greater knowledge and alignment for investors in the alternative investments space.

Bill and I had a fascinating conversation. His thoughtful and eloquent views on the evolution of the alternatives space led us to talk about:

• How the Retirement Promise has impacted consumers and investors and what it means for alternative investments.
• The importance of being a fiduciary.
• How CAIA consistently evolves their educational program to cover emerging trends like crypto and DeFi.
• How partnerships with leading investment platforms in the alts space like iCapital help to move the industry forward.

Bill brings an operator’s perspective to CAIA. Prior to joining CAIA in 2014, Bill was the CEO of Boston Partners and one of seven founding partners of the predecessor firm, Boston Partners Asset Management, which was sold to $215 billion global asset manager Robeco in 2002. He then led Robeco’s US operations as CEO.

Bill’s illustrious career in institutional asset management spans over 30 years, where he’s been in CEO, COO, and CFO roles across a number of firms. He is also currently the Chairman and Lead Independent Director for the Boston Partners Trust Company, which has over $2 billion in AUM. 

Bill has been an independent board member at Salient Partners, a $16 billion investment advisory firm, and an Independent Trustee at Bank of America’s $50 billion mutual fund complex business. 

He’s also an Advisory Board Member of the Certified Investment Fund Director Institute, which strives to bring the highest levels of professionalism and governance to independent fund directors around the world.

Bill is a lifelong learner and a tireless advocate for shareholder protection and investor education, which led him to his current role at CAIA, which he has helped grow the membership to over 11,000 members and 31 chapters across 95 countries.

CAIA serves a critical role in the alternative investments industry – they educate industry stakeholders and fiduciaries on the most current knowledge and best practices across the evolving landscape of alts. 

They have a sophisticated credentialing and thought leadership program that equips everyone from fund managers to distributors of alternative investment products to individuals who want to learn about alts with the tools they need to understand the industry as CAIA looks to consistently raise the standards across the industry.

Thanks Bill for sharing such important and interesting thoughts on the alts space and for providing critical education to the space through CAIA.

I hope you enjoy.

Today, we have a special guest who is changing the mechanics of private company stock ownership and investing for the better for employees, companies, and investors alike.

Kelly Rodriques is the CEO of Forge, the leading private company stock exchange and investment platform.

On today’s podcast, Kelly and I discuss:

• How private markets are the new public markets.
• How companies like Forge are unlocking a huge wealth management opportunity hidden in plain sight.
• How Forge is creating new accredited investors directly on their platform thanks to secondary market liquidity - and what that means for the alts space.
• How the private markets can innovate with structured products like index funds that provide diversified exposure to blue-chip private company stocks. 
• How and why strategics like Deutsche Borse and BNP Paribas see Forge as critical to the private markets ecosystem.

Kelly has helped build out the private market investment ecosystem at scale for Forge, bringing together a trading business, a private markets exchange with data, and managed liquidity solutions for late-stage private companies. Kelly and Forge also acquired and operate IRA Services, a self-directed IRA custodian with over $13 billion in assets across 1.5 million accounts.

Forge has transacted on over $10 billion in deal volume and counts many of the top private companies as customers. They’ve also received meaningful investment from strategic investors like Deutsche Borse, BNP Paribas, TD Ameritrade, and Munich Re.

Kelly has a great background to be building Forge. He combines a background as a successful serial entrepreneur with multiple exits, the deep marketing acumen, and the expertise from leading one of the largest self-directed IRA businesses, Pensco, to a successful sale. Prior to joining Forge as CEO, Kelly was the CEO of Pensco, one of the nation’s leading alternative asset custodians, which had over $16 billion of assets under custody and was sold to Opus Bank for $104 million in 2017. 

Kelly was also a founding investor of mFoundry, the leading provider of mobile banking services, which was acquired by FIS in 2013. He also built Totality, which he sold to Verizon in 2006, and has run an early-stage FinTech VC fund, Operative Capital, that has made 26 early-stage FinTech investments.

Thank you Kelly for providing such an insightful and fascinating look into the transformation happening in the private company stock market space. Your passion for innovating in private markets is palpable and such a welcome addition to the industry.

I hope you enjoy.