Alternative investment platforms
Yieldstreet, Fundrise, Percent, Masterworks, iCapital, EquityZen, CrowdStreet, Republic, AngelList. Minimums from $10 to $25k, fees from 1% to 2/20, accreditation gates on most. Filter to what you can actually invest in — then read the traps.
Free, no signup, runs in your browser · SEC Rule 501, Reg CF, and Reg D 506(c) citations inline
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Filter by check size, asset class, and whether you're accredited. The nine platforms below cover roughly 90% of the retail-facing alt landscape as of Q2 2026.
9of 9 platforms match
Sorted by minimum investment (low to high)
| Platform | Min | Asset classes | Fee (typical) | Accredited? | Liquidity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fundrise | $10 | Real estate | 0.15% advisory + 0.85% mgmt | Open to all | Quarterly windows — 1% penalty first 5 years |
| Republic | $100 | Venture / pre-IPOReal estateOther | Varies by deal (2–6%) | Open to all | Long-hold, deal-by-deal |
| Percent | $500 | Private credit | ~1% servicing | Required | Illiquid until maturity (9–36 months) |
| Yieldstreet | $10,000 | Real estatePrivate creditArt & collectiblesOther | 1–2% annual | Required | Semi-liquid — quarterly redemption on Prism fund only |
| AngelList Rolling Fund | $10,000 | Venture / pre-IPO | 2% mgmt + 20% carry | Required | 10-year illiquid |
| EquityZen | $10,000 | Pre-IPO secondariesVenture / pre-IPO | 5% up-front + fund-level carry | Required | Exit-dependent (IPO, tender, or sale) |
| Masterworks | $15,000 | Art & collectibles | 1.5% annual + 20% carry | Open to all | Illiquid until piece sold (est. 3–10 yr hold) |
| CrowdStreet | $25,000 | Real estate | 0–2% per deal, sponsor promotes on top | Required | 3–10 year hold, deal-specific |
| iCapital | $25,000 | Private creditVenture / pre-IPOOther | Fund-level (2/20 typical) | Required | Illiquid, fund-defined lock-ups |
wlthy tracks positions across all of these — plus your public brokerage, IRAs, and crypto — so the alt sleeve rolls into one net-worth line instead of nine broker statements. See pricing →
SEC Rule 501 says accredited means $1M net worth (ex-primary-residence) or $200k income solo / $300k joint for the last two years. Roughly 13% of US households clear that bar. Every top-shelf platform — Yieldstreet, iCapital, CrowdStreet, EquityZen — checks it. Regulation Crowdfunding platforms like Republic and Fundrise's flagship eREITs are the two big exceptions.
The industry standard is 2/20 — 2% annual management plus 20% carry on gains above a hurdle. Over a 10-year fund with 12% gross returns, that stack takes a 40%+ bite of your equity gain. Platform-level fees (1–2%) sit on top of the fund's own fees. Read the offering documents for both layers before wiring a dollar.
A 7-year lock-up doesn't feel like one until year 2, when a kitchen remodel or a job loss lands. Marketing pages love the phrase 'quarterly distributions' — that's income, not liquidity. Read the redemption schedule twice. Fundrise, for example, allows redemptions quarterly but with a 1% penalty for the first 5 years. Percent is fully illiquid until each note matures.
The term is loose. Any consumer-facing site that sells something other than stocks, bonds, and mutual funds gets called an "alt platform." Underneath, the products split along three real axes.
SEC Rule 501 sets the bar. $1M net worth ex-primary-residence, or $200k income solo / $300k joint for two years running. About 13% of US households qualify — the other 87% are blocked from the top-shelf platforms.
Proving it varies by platform. Some ask you to self-attest with a checkbox at signup and don't verify until you fund an investment. Others require documentation up front. The formal proof options look like this:
One shortcut added in 2020: holders of an active Series 7, 65, or 82 licence qualify as accredited regardless of net worth. Useful if you're a financial professional and your net worth is below $1M but you want to invest personally.
The advertised annual fee is usually only half the story. There are three layers to check for on every platform:
Do the math on a realistic 10-year hold. Assume 12% gross annual returns. A 2/20 fund with an 8% hurdle nets you maybe 8.5% annualized after fees. Layer a 1% platform fee on top and you're at 7.5%. Public equity has done ~10% over the same span. Alts have to clear that bar just to be a rational trade — and half of them don't.
This is where most first-timers get burned. Alt marketing pages use language that sounds liquid but isn't. Here's the translation key:
The rule most family offices use: match the illiquidity horizon of the money to the illiquidity horizon of the investment. Cash you might need in three years does not belong in a 7-year lock-up. If the return premium isn't at least 300 basis points over comparable public credit, the illiquidity isn't paying for itself.
Before you put a dollar into a platform you haven't used, run these seven checks. Takes about an hour per platform.
After watching a few hundred readers work through this stack, the same three errors keep showing up.
Putting 30% of your net worth on one platform because the UX is good and the returns look strong. Platform failure risk is real — RealtyShares shut down in 2018, EquityMultiple restructured in 2024, and both events froze investor capital for months. Cap any single platform at 5% of net worth. Cap any single asset class at 10%.
Art in 2022 (Masterworks IPO wave), private credit in 2024 (rate spike drove yield-chasing), venture in 2021 (the ZIRP finale). Each time, the platform pumping the category hardest was picking the top. The rule of thumb: if a category is on a magazine cover, you're late.
A targeted IRR is what the sponsor hopes to achieve. It is not a floor. It is not audited. It's a marketing figure. Realized IRR on closed deals from the same sponsor is the number worth reading. Most platforms bury it — Yieldstreet's transparency report is one of the better ones, and its 2020 marine losses are right there in it.
The moment you have positions on six or seven alt platforms plus a public brokerage plus a retirement stack, your net worth becomes a spreadsheet exercise. Each platform sends quarterly statements at slightly different dates. K-1s land between March and September. Capital calls arrive without warning. Your CPA asks for a list of every commitment you've made and you're reconstructing it from email.
That's the problem wlthy solves. One net-worth line across every platform in the matrix above, plus your public brokerage, IRAs, bank accounts, and crypto. Fundrise connects directly via API. The rest — Masterworks, Yieldstreet, Percent, iCapital, CrowdStreet — plug in via PDF statement upload. wlthy's parser reads the statement, folds the balance into your net worth, and files the K-1 attachments with the position so your CPA has a running record. Pricing lives here.
Sources referenced
SEC Rule 501 (accredited investor definition, amended 2020); SEC Rule 506(b) and 506(c) under Regulation D; Regulation Crowdfunding (Reg CF); IRC §4975 (prohibited-transaction rules for IRAs); SEC Form ADV; Yieldstreet 2020 Marine Loss Report; RealtyShares 2018 shutdown notice. Educational only — consult a CPA and a registered investment advisor before allocating to any alt platform.
Someone with a maxed 401(k), a taxable brokerage, and $150k of cash burning a hole. The right first move is usually a low-minimum retail-friendly platform — Fundrise for real estate, maybe Republic for a small venture sleeve — not writing a $25k check into a CrowdStreet deal you can't get out of. Start with 5% of net worth in alts, not 25%.
$3M+ net worth, wants 15–20% in alts across venture, private credit, and secondaries. This is where iCapital and AngelList Rolling Funds start to pay for themselves — access to funds a retail brokerage account can't touch. Diversification across at least 3–4 platforms matters, because platform failure is a real risk (see EquityMultiple's 2024 restructuring).
You just sold, cash landed in a brokerage, and every wealth manager is calling. Before writing any single check above 5% of your new liquid net worth, get the tracking layer in place. Private funds send K-1s in April, not year-end 1099s. Your CPA needs a running list of every commitment, capital call, and distribution — spreadsheet or platform, but not memory.
Two paths. Income: $200k for you alone (or $300k jointly with a spouse) in each of the last two years, with a reasonable expectation of the same this year. Net worth: over $1M excluding your primary residence, either alone or with your spouse. Most platforms let you self-attest at signup, but before your first funded investment they'll ask for verification — either a W-2, tax return, brokerage statement, or a signed letter from your CPA, attorney, or registered broker-dealer under SEC Rule 506(c). Series 7, 65, or 82 licence holders also qualify, added in 2020.
Depends what 'safe' means. On track record: Fundrise has the longest continuous performance history in retail real estate (2012) and has never gated redemptions. Yieldstreet had a rough 2020 with the marine finance losses and paid out settlements to affected investors. Masterworks has sold ~20 pieces at reported IRRs around 10–15%, but the sample is small. Percent has had defaults in its private credit book — losses are disclosed on the platform. Nobody has a spotless record. Look for platforms that disclose losses publicly, not the ones with only good news on the homepage.
Yes. A self-directed IRA (SDIRA) with a custodian like Alto, Rocket Dollar, or Equity Trust lets you hold private equity, real estate, crypto, and most other alts inside the IRA wrapper. Fees for the custodian run $200–$500 a year. Two catches. First, UBTI (unrelated business taxable income) can hit if the underlying investment uses borrowed money, and the IRA itself owes tax on that slice above $1k. Second, prohibited-transaction rules under IRC §4975 are strict — you can't invest in a fund where you're the GP, and you can't personally guarantee any debt the IRA takes on. Talk to a CPA before your first alt-in-IRA move.
Rarely, and usually at a haircut. EquityZen and Forge are secondary markets for pre-IPO shares themselves, but they don't help you exit a Yieldstreet note or a Fundrise position. Some platforms run auction-style redemption windows (Fundrise has one; Yieldstreet's Prism fund has one). The realistic assumption: the money is locked for the stated term. If you need liquidity mid-lockup, you're either negotiating with the platform, waiting, or selling at 60 cents on the dollar to a specialized secondary buyer.
K-1 hell is real. Anything organized as a partnership (most private funds, most CrowdStreet deals, AngelList SPVs) sends a Schedule K-1 that lands anywhere from March to September. Your CPA charges $50–$300 extra per K-1 to process. REIT-structured products (Fundrise's core funds, Yieldstreet's Prism) send 1099-DIVs — much cleaner. Masterworks sends 1099-Bs when a piece sells. If your alt sleeve grows past 5–10 positions, tax prep costs and filing extensions become part of the total cost of ownership.
SIPC doesn't cover this. SIPC protects brokerage accounts against broker failure, not private-fund losses or platform bankruptcy. Most alt platforms use an SPV or fund structure — the fund itself owns the underlying assets, so a platform bankruptcy shouldn't wipe out your position, but it can freeze it while a receiver sorts out custody and administration. Real cases: iCapital handles administration for hundreds of feeder funds, so if a smaller platform fails, its funds often keep operating under iCapital's admin. Read the custody arrangement in the offering docs. If the platform holds title directly, that's the bad shape to be in.
Rule of thumb for accredited investors: 10–20% of investable net worth, no more than one-third of that in any single platform or asset class. That's the range most family-office allocators quote for HNW households. Below $1M investable, most planners say stay under 10% — the liquidity cost isn't worth it for portfolios where a job loss could force a sale. Over $10M, alts often creep to 25–35%, but that's a different game with different products (direct co-invest, secondaries funds, private BDCs).
Directly to Fundrise, and via document upload for the rest. Yieldstreet, Percent, iCapital, CrowdStreet, and Masterworks don't expose a public API — the industry practice is quarterly PDF statements. wlthy's parser reads those PDFs and folds the balance into your net-worth line, so you get one figure across the alt sleeve, the public brokerage, and every retirement account without exporting a spreadsheet.
Nine platforms, K-1s scattered across three months, capital calls arriving without warning. wlthy folds it all into one figure, plus the public brokerage and every retirement account. See the alt sleeve grow without exporting a single spreadsheet.
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