7 Platforms With Alternative Investments for Non-Accredited Investors
Every year, more and more investors are adding alternative assets to their portfolios.
Alternatives are increasing in popularity for a few reasons:
- They may offer higher returns
- They can serve as a better hedge against inflation
- They provide diversification outside of traditional markets
However, because alternatives are relatively new offerings, the SEC has deemed many of them risky and not suitable for all investors.
Only “accredited investors” are eligible to invest in certain alternative assets.
Accreditation requirements
You can qualify as an accredited investor if:
- You have an annual income of $200,000 individually or $300,000 jointly.
- Your net worth exceeds $1,000,000, excluding your primary residence.
- You are a qualifying financial professional with a Series 7, 65, or 82 license.
If you qualify as an accredited investor, check out this article.
If you're not an accredited investor, you may feel like your options for investing in alternative assets are limited.
That's true to some extent, but many of the best alternative investing platforms have offerings that give non-accredited investors opportunities to access their assets.
That means you can invest in real estate, art, venture capital funds, private debt, and more. Here's how.
Summary view: best platforms for non-accredited investors
- Best overall: Yieldstreet
- Best for venture capital: Fundrise
- Best for vacation rental properties: Arrived
- Best for cryptocurrencies and HYSA (alongside traditional markets): Public
- Best for contemporary art: Masterworks
- Best for private REITs: RealtyMogul
- Best for P2P lending: Prosper
Keep reading for more detailed breakdowns of each platform listed above.
Disclaimer: Ratings are my opinion. Actual results may vary, and past performance does not guarantee future results. All investors should do their own due diligence.
1. Yieldstreet: best overall
- Overall rating:
- Asset(s): Real estate, art, private credit, cryptocurrencies, venture capital, and more
- Minimum investment: $10,000
Yieldstreet is the top platform for alternative investing.
On it, accredited investors can invest in 10 alternative asset classes, all under one login.
Plus, each individual investment is vetted by a team of experts. This breadth of highly curated investment options is why more than 500,000 investors have invested more than $6 billion on Yieldstreet.
Source: Yieldstreet
While the bulk of the listings on Yieldstreet are only available to accredited investors, my favorite offering of theirs — the Yieldstreet Alternative Income Fund — is available to all investors.
The fund owns a basket of alternative investments including real estate, private credit, legal finance, art, structured notes, and more, with the goal of generating a balance of income and price appreciation.
The fund allows you to invest in all of them with a single investment. It's the easiest way to diversify your portfolio across a range of alternative investments.
The biggest drawback to the Alternative Income Fund is that it has a minimum investment of $10,000.
Personally, I don't want alternative assets to make up more than 25% of my portfolio, so this would prohibit me from investing on Yieldstreet if my portfolio total was less than $40,000.*
*Plus, I prefer spreading my alternatives allocation across multiple platforms, so I wouldn't invest in the fund if my portfolio was less than $100,000.
If your portfolio is large enough, however, this fund is easily one of my favorite ways to invest in alternatives.
2. Fundrise: best for venture capital
- Overall rating:
- Asset(s): Venture capital fund and real estate
- Minimum investment: $10
Fundrise is one of the top real estate crowdfunding platforms, and it's open to all investors.
Fundrise is easy to use and offers a simple way to start investing in real estate. It invests in multi-family buildings, industrial properties, and residential homes. Its current real estate portfolio is worth over $7 billion.
But while it's best known for its real estate arm, I want to highlight one of its other offerings: the Fundrise Innovation Fund.
The Innovation Fund is a venture capital fund that invests in private technology companies. A few of its most recent investments include OpenAI, Databricks, and Canva.
Venture capital has been one of the best-performing asset classes in the last 30 years and almost entirely inaccessible to individual investors.
Source: Fundrise
Like it did with real estate, Fundrise is now making the world of venture capital available to retail investors.
The Innovation Fund has an annual management fee of 1.85% and a minimum investment of $10.
It's the best way that I've seen for non-accredited investors to invest in tech startups.
3. Arrived: best for vacation properties
- Overall rating:
- Asset(s): Single-family homes
- Minimum investment: $100
While you can also do your real estate investing on Fundrise, another option is Arrived.
Arrived makes it really easy to get started in real estate. You can sign up in a few minutes, browse through Arrived's investment properties, choose between long- or short-term rentals, and make your first investment with as little as $100.
Source: Arrived
Here's how Arrived works:
- The investment team analyzes thousands of deals, approving fewer than 0.2%.
- After passing its due diligence, Arrived will make an offer and buy a property.
- Once purchased, the company “securitizes” it with the SEC, a process which allows users to buy individual shares.
- You purchase shares and have direct ownership in the LLC that owns the property.
- Arrived lists and rents the property, then distributes the rental income as dividends.
- After a 5–7 year holding period (on average), Arrived may sell the property and distribute the proceeds from any price appreciation.
The entire process is very straightforward and almost entirely hands-off. You can invest from Arrived's website or mobile app.
To date, Arrived has distributed more than $16 million in dividends (rental income). And all investors had to do was register, buy shares, and wait.
4. Public: best for cryptocurrencies and HYSA (alongside traditional markets)
- Overall rating:
- Asset(s): Cryptocurrencies, HYSA, stocks, ETFs, bonds, and Treasuries
- Minimum investment: $0
Public is our most recommended brokerage.
It has an excellent design, is fast, and offers free stock and ETF trading. You can also invest in corporate bonds, Treasuries, and options.
Each account also comes with a high-yield savings account, so you can earn more on your extra cash without opening a separate account.
Additionally, Public offers access to 40+ cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP, Dogecoin, and Litecoin.
Source: Public
Since most investors' portfolios are primarily made up of traditional investments (like stocks, ETFs, bonds, and cash) anyways, it's very convenient to also have your crypto investing and your HYSA in the same place.
While Public isn't the most exciting recommendation on this list, it's probably the most practical.
6. Masterworks: best for high-end art
- Overall rating:
- Asset(s): Art
- Minimum investment: $15,000
Masterworks is the best platform for investing in high-end, contemporary art.
The two main reasons for investors adding alternatives to their portfolios is 1) performance and 2) diversification outside of traditional markets.
From 2001-2023, contemporary art outperformed nearly all other alternative assets while showing minimal correlation to stocks:
Source: Masterworks
If you're wondering about Masterworks' process, it resembles Arrived's:
- The platform's team of experts analyzes thousands of artists and paintings, looking for the ones with the most momentum (it approves ~3%).
- Masterworks purchases, ships, and stores the artwork.
- The company securitizes the artwork with the SEC, allowing you to buy individual shares.
- If your art appreciates and you want to realize returns, you can sell your shares to other Masterworks investors or wait until the team sells the painting for your proceeds to be distributed.
Masterworks' stated minimum investment is $15,000, but I've seen instances online of investors getting special approval to invest smaller amounts (like $5,000–$10,000). It's worth making the introductory call.
6. RealtyMogul: best for private REITs
- Overall rating:
- Asset(s): Private real estate investment trusts (REITs)
- Minimum investment: $5,000
RealtyMogul is another real estate crowdfunding platform for non-accredited investors, but it offers private REITs.
A real estate investment trust (REIT) is a single investment into a diversified basket of real estate properties.
To qualify as a REIT, however, the trust must distribute 90% or more of all taxable income to its investors each year. This makes them an attractive investment for income-seeking investors.
In addition to paying high dividends, REITs are also known for their moderate long-term capital appreciation. In this area, RealtyMogul's Growth REIT and Income REIT have done well:
Source: RealtyMogul
As their names suggest, the Growth REIT is more focused on value-add projects (to aim for increased price appreciation) while the Income REIT is more focused on stability and dividends.
The minimum investment for both REITs is $5,000.
7. Prosper: best for peer-to-peer lending
- Overall rating:
- Asset(s): Peer-to-peer lending
- Minimum investment: $25
Prosper is a peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform that allows you to lend other people money for a variety of uses, including debt consolidation, medical expenses, home improvement projects, weddings, and more.
Each listing has a credit rating, loan term, target yield, and details about the borrower:
Source: Prosper
Since 2005, more than $28 billion has been invested on Prosper.
Like RealtyMogul, investors are drawn to P2P lending for monthly cash flow. Over the last 20 years, the average annualized return on Prosper has been 5.3%.
On Prosper, you can invest in individual loans or use Auto Invest, which will deploy your money in a pre-set mix. When using Auto Invest, your money is automatically reinvested in new loans, so it is always working for you.
What is an accredited investor?
To protect investors from assets considered especially risky, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) only allows “accredited investors” to own certain types of investments.
There is no certification to become an accredited investor. To be considered an accredited investor, you must meet one of the following criteria:
- Have an annual individual income of $200,000+ or joint income of $300,000+ for each of the last two years and be on pace for at least that much income this year.
- Have a net worth of at least $1 million, excluding your primary residence.
- Qualify as an investment professional via a Series 7, 65, or 82 license.
If you meet one of these three criteria, you qualify as an accredited investor.
To start investing on an accredited investor platform, you will need to create an account and have your status verified with the platform's customer support team.
If you do not qualify, you're a non-accredited (or "retail") investor.
How we chose the best platforms
When evaluating investing products and services, we take the following into consideration:
- Core offering: How good is the platform itself?
- Price/fees: Overall price, value for money, and any hidden fees.
- Usability: What the interface looks like, whether the platform is easy to use and navigate, the inclusion of modern design elements and features, and accessibility.
- Credibility: Quality of site information as well as company and brand reputation.
- Audience: Who the platform is for and whether it actually works.
- Offers: Whether there is a special offer for signing up or any discounts.
Final verdict
While it might seem like all of the new alternative investing platforms are for accredited investors only, the majority of these platforms have opportunities for non-accredited (retail) investors as well.
In fact, even as a retail investor, there's a way to invest in almost every private market.
Here's a recap of a few different asset types and where you can invest in them:
- Multi-asset fund: Yieldstreet
- Venture capital: Fundrise
- Real estate: Arrived, Fundrise, RealtyMogul
- Collectibles: Public
- Art: Masterworks
- P2P lending: Prosper
However, keep in mind that the majority of your investment portfolio (75% or more) should probably be invested in traditional, public market assets like stocks, bonds, ETFs, and Treasuries.
If you don't already have a traditional brokerage account, we recommend Public as a good option for beginners.
.png)
