Investable Universe

Chris Rawley is the founder and CEO of agriculture finance platform Harvest Returns. Their platform allows investors to buy fractional shares of farmland (and timberland) in the U.S. (and abroad), as well as crowdsourced investment in grass-fed livestock and other agribusiness ventures, such as vertical farming and (eventually) aquaculture--and provides agriculture entrepreneurs access to a streamlined, flexible source of capital. This summer, Harvest Returns reached $5 million in global private placement farming opportunities, helping grass-fed cattle nd sheep producers alone to raise $2.5 million. What's more, this bootstrapped company is founded by U.S. servicemen. Chris Rawley is an active duty serviceman with the U.S. Navy Reserve, while the company's partner and COO was an officer in the U.S. Army for ten years. We discuss the outlook for agribusiness investing, as well as the unique skill set that veterans and active-duty service personnel bring to entrepreneurship. 

Real estate developer and investor Edward Mermelstein has been a dealmaker in New York City luxury real estate for several decades, and a leading expert in closing complex deals and winning unique legal cases. Having been named one of the 10 most influential figures in New York City real estate, today he is the founder and CEO of One & Only Holdings, a company that caters to the real estate investment needs of high-net-worth individuals. In this episode, Mermelstein talks about how covid-19 (and the political landscape of the past four years) has affected demand from foreign buyers for New York City's choicest properties and whether pandemic-related shifts are leading HNW investors to look beyond NYC as a real estate safe haven. 

AltoIRA is an investment "platform-of-platforms" that allows holders of individual retirement accounts to use their IRA funds to invest in startups and other private companies, real estate, crypto assets and more. We spoke with CEO and Founder Eric Satz on the quandaries of retail investors accessing private market investments, the future of real assets investing, whether there's any asset that can't (or won't) be fractionalized, and, more philosophically, what the emergence of alternative retirement investment products says about how Americans view (or don't view) retirement and the old-fashioned "employer match." 

2020 looked nothing like anyone expected. Among the many who’ve had a difficult job of navigating this environment are investors and risk managers, who have traditionally relied on historical data to backtest trade strategies and assess risk exposures for current and future events. This has been a tough job in a year when so much of what happened had no precedent. 

This week's guest Jeremy Sosabowski, a former Cambridge physicist turned fintech entrepreneur, has developed market forecasting analytics based on quantum computing that enable investors to position for “Black Swan” events without the need for historical data, using quantum computing. His firm AlgoDynamix, provides a new level of forecasting analytics that provide advance warning of major directional market movements, not requiring any historical data or knowledge of any previous disruptive events. 

An Icelandic startup, IceWind, has an ingenuous approach to industrial materials and design that allows a vertical axis wind turbine to provide distributed energy in extreme climates, such as the Arctic. Newly launched for residential and commercial customers in the state of Texas, the company is also finding an interested client base in foreign governments and military customers--specifically, the U.S. Air Force. We talked to Robert Gerber, who spent over a decade with the U.S. State Department, serving at U.S. Embassies in Kabul, Paris, and Washington D.C., finally serving as Political and Economic Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Reykjavik, Iceland. Today, Gerber works for IceWind to develop new client relationships worldwide. We talked to him about IceWind's design, its emerging applications, and what's at stake in the Arctic. 

This episode features Vincent Zurzolo, co-owner of New York's Metropolis Collectibles, the world's largest vintage comic book dealership, and ComicConnect.com, the largest online vintage comic auction house. He and his partner, Stephen Fishler, hold five Guinness World Records for the most expensive comics and related collectibles ever sold. We spoke with him about comics as a durable store of value, as an emerging (and increasingly global) alternative investment class, fractionalization of collectible titles, how valuations are faring as covid-19 puts a damper on conventions, major movie productions, and brick-and-mortar stores. He also describes a crimefighting crusade on behalf of one comic book celebrity...and jaw dropping auction numbers from one of Wall Street's best known investors. 

Geospatial technologies, or earth mapping capabilities, have long been in use in military intelligence and defense. Today, they’re being deployed commercially and likely to have transformational impacts in the era of Industry 4.0, including agriculture, defense, transportation, health care, financial services, and even real estate.  St. Louis has long been home to the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Agency’s Western outpost—which has $1.75 billion in a new and improved agency HQ in St Louis. And the industry has already had a $5 billion economic impact on that city, and that’s prior to major VC funds taking stakes in companies. We talked to Andy Dearing, president of Spatial STL Advisors, a strategic consulting firm specializing in geospatial technologies, and project lead of the GeoFutures Initiative, an industry roadmap for the broader St. Louis geospatial startup scene.

Foreign Minister Guðlaugur Þór Þórðarson speaks about the imperative for "building back better" through global cooperation in the post-covid world, and offers Iceland's experience as a pioneer in renewable geothermal technology, R&D, sustainable fishing and ocean stewardship practices, and gender equality. He also shares Iceland's view on Arctic policy as the country continues its chairmanship of the Arctic Council through 2021, and how he hopes to continue Iceland's productive bilateral relationship with the U.S., after outgoing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo became the first cabinet-level U.S. envoy to visit Iceland in 11 years. Foreign Minister Þórðarson's interview was granted in connection with the online expo, "How Do I Invest In Iceland?" produced by Promote Iceland and the Consulate of Iceland in New York. 

A highly successful secondary offering earlier this fall by Icelandair, a rapidly growing sustainable corporate bond market, a promising pipeline for Icelandic growth companies coming to market, the emergence of First North as a public market alternative to VC, and increasing interest from retail and institutional investors, all point to possible tailwinds for the Icelandic listed market. In connection with the upcoming virtual investment expo "How Do I Invest in Iceland?" produced by Promote Iceland and the Consulate of Iceland in New York, we spoke with Nasdaq Iceland CEO Magnus Hardarson on how the exchange--and Iceland's financial system overall--has recovered and adapted since the Great Financial Crisis, and how a transparent and regulated market has helped the country withstand the economic stresses of covid-19.   

Iceland notches consistently high ratings on global business and societal indexes, and measures of competitiveness, education, human development, equality and peace. And now, you can add government tax incentives to that list. Ahead of the upcoming virtual investment expo "How Do I Invest in Iceland?" we talked to Haraldur Ingi Birgisson, Tax & Legal Leader at Deloitte Iceland, on how the country integrates Scandinavian-style social welfare and living standards with a competitive environment that encourages foreign companies to invest.