Online investing platform Vincent announced Wednesday it raised a Series A funding round worth $6 million to go towards the expansion of its alternative assets business model. The funding round was led by investment veteran Jason Calacanis of LAUNCH along with Joe Lonsdale of 8VC, Barry Silbert of Digital Currency Group as well as a number of its founders and individual investors.
Founded in November of 2020 by Indiegogo founder Slava Rubin, along with Eric Cantor, Evan Cohen and Ross Cohen, the platform is boasting close to $3.5 billion worth of assets.
“Alts” as they are also known, is a financial asset that does not fall into one of the conventional investment categories that includes stocks, bonds and cash. These range from venture capitalism in alternative energy to ultra-rare Pokémon cards to revenue shares in rural New Hampshire distilleries.
According to Vincent, the new funding will enable the company to accelerate growth and double down on its search experience with the use of more intricate data for investors to pursue and compare.
Like Kayak, Zillow, Trviago etc., the site links users to the actual investment site where the transaction can occur such as Fundrise, Yieldstreet, Collectable, Republic or Masterworks.
“The institutions and the super high net-worth individuals have known that if you want to get the best returns on your portfolio, you need to portion some of it,” said Slava Ruben, Vincent co-founder in an interview with FinLedger. “That includes things like real estate, debt, crypto art and trading cards – different asset classes.”
The 60/40 model of investing ― putting 60% of your investments in equities and 40% in bonds ― is a standard argument for the benefits of the alternative investment model.
Following its Series C funding round in June, Michael Weisz, Founder, President and CIO of alt investment platform Yieldstreet formerly told FinLedger that for now the 60/40 investment model is broken. Essentially, people are inefficiently making their money work for them.
And Vincent shares a similar view.
According to Ruben, Vincent is attempting to democratize that investment access to the normal person, whether they are accredited or aspirationally accredited. A portfolio of at least 3% to 7% is the sweet spot for “alts”, and Vincent is working to get its users there, Ruben told FinLedger.
Within its monthly data report, Venture capitalism was the most popular interest for investors in June (28%), followed closely by real estate (26%) with digital assets/crypto and debt/fixed income tying for third (12% each).
However, while these made up the greatest number of actual investments, investors curiosity reflected a different dataset. Top searches on Vincent last month put cryptocurrency at the top spot, followed by AI, cannabis, fintech/finance and food/foodtech.