🦄 Alts.co: Alternative investment discovery and analysis

🦄 Unicorner Startup of the Week: Alts.co

✍️ Notes From The Editors

Happy Monday! To our US-based readers, we hope you’re enjoying the long weekend. This week’s article is an interesting one, mainly because it’s a bit different than most companies we’ve covered in the past. Stefan from Alts is one of our readers, and he reached out to us a few months ago to introduce himself. After just a few calls, it became apparent that the niche space Alts is targeting (alternative investing) is ripe with potential, especially as accessibility to different asset classes to retail investors becomes greater over time. Let us know what you think!

Also, Alts is currently raising its seed round. We’ve mentioned it below, but if you’re interested in learning more and getting connected with the founders, fill out this form.

- Arek and Ethan 🦄

Alternative investment discovery and analysis

Alts.co is a community-based company built to inform people about alternative investments. Originally started as two separate newsletters from both founders, Alts was created to give its readers recommendations on a variety of different investment options, ranging from real estate to baseball cards. Alts does most of the leg work in finding the value of these alternative investments using a combination of comparative sales analysis, pricing research, and collectible grading where applicable. More recently, the company launched ALTS 1, a managed fund that allows the public to invest in top picks from the Alts team.

🔗 Check them out: alts.co

💰 Business Model

Currently, revenue is generated from subscription revenue and sponsorships. Once the ALTS 1 fund is closed, revenue will include 1% fund management fees and 20% carry.

📈 Traction and Fundraising

Over 50k audience members between various newsletters
Raised $1.5 million pre-seed with investors like Blackbird, Treble Capital (Daniel Gulati), and Sidestage Ventures; 30% of the round was collected from the Alts community
Currently raising seed round (pitch deck available). If you’re interested in learning more or investing, fill out this interest form.

👫 Founders

Stefan Von Imhof, CEO: Previously Head of Product @ Flippa, Product @ LinkedIn, Product @ Citrix, Business Administration, Marketing, Philosophy @ UMass Amherst
Wyatt Cavalier, Chief Investment Officer: Previously Head of Strategy & Planning @ Barclays, Senior Consultant @ Booz Allen Hamilton, Major MS @ University, MBA @ UChicago, Security Studies MA @ Georgetown, Political Science BA @ UCLA

💼 Opportunities

Be sure to mention you came from Unicorner when applying!

Head of Growth
Lead Developer (email the team)

🔮 Our Analysis

We’ve spent the past two years dissecting unicorns-to-be for this newsletter. Part of that has to do with simultaneously treating startups as both an asset and a story. We always want to understand how a startup has (or plans to) create value, and we love telling stories of how great ideas have come to fruition. The work Stefan and Wyatt are doing is—in more ways than one—executing a very similar mission, projected to a completely new world of investing. Alts isn’t the first company out there detailing alternative investing, but it’s certainly one of the most comprehensive. A simple look through its website lists 34 categories of investment recommendations, ranging from cars, wine, domains, and comic books, just to name a few. While Alts has traditionally been comprised of its newsletter and blog articles, the company has been expanding beyond just that. The recent launch of its ALTS 1 fund allows people to invest in recommended alternative assets rather than having to directly buy into the many different markets Alts covers. In addition, future plans exist for an Amazon-like two-sided marketplace intended to allow both investors to easily buy and sell shares in different alternative investments with insights directly built into the site.

📚 Further Reading

Inside Alts, an Email Community Dedicated to the Fascinating World of Alternative Assets [Money]
Podcast: The Best Alternative Assets - Stefan von Imhof of Alts.co on Farmland, Royalties, ADUs, Cards + More [The Louis and Kyle Show]

Written by the editors

If you enjoyed today's article, forward this email to a friend!

If you're just seeing this email now, subscribe here.

Made with 💜 by the Unicorner Team 🦄

🎁 Bonus Content!

Have you gotten a job at a startup because of Unicorner? If so, we’d like to hear from you. We’re thinking about building a job board for our community to provide better access to job opportunities, and we want to know what ultimately worked for you. Just reply to this email and let us know where you ended up working!

This email was sent to you

You received this email because you signed up with Unicorner.

Unsubscribe here 💔

🦄 Alts.co: Alternative investment discovery and analysis

Older messages

🦄 Subject: Custom educational curriculum for all

🦄 Launch House: Communities for ambitious builders

🦄 Climate X: Climate risk data and analytics

🦄 Lovewick: Stay in love

🦄 Castiron: Enabling online restaurants

You Might Also Like

🗞 What's New: ~40% of young adults get their news from influencers

Initiator Creator - Issue 145

🛑 STOP EVERYTHING 🛑 BLACK FRIDAY IS NOW!

What’s 🔥 in Enterprise IT/VC #421

I'm blue

🚀 Globalstar to the Nasdaq

Theory Two

🗞 What's New: AI creators may be coming to TikTok

behind the scenes of the 2024 digital health 50

How to get set up on Bluesky