As more and more alternative investment marketplaces pop up around specific verticals like art or collectibles, Indiegogo founder Slava Rubin is launching a Kayak-like platform called Vincent which helps curious investors get a handle on what the entire asset class has to offer.
Rubin and co-founders Evan Cohen and Ross Cohen have raised $2 million for the venture with backing from investors including Uncommon Denominator, ERA Ventures, The Fund and Rubin’s own firm Humbition. Vincent launched in beta this July but the firm is now ready to take the platform wide with a public launch. Rubin says the team has assembled the “most comprehensive database of alternate investments.”
Rubin has been a driving force behind alternative investments since his Indiegogo days and has helped guide some of the existing legislation that has made investments in alternative assets more tenable.
Part of the buzz around alternative investments in 2020 is the result of evolving guidance from stateside regulatory bodies, while added attention comes from the boom around investment platforms that bring users more approachable tools to access financial institutions. Specific verticals may be hoping to build up a Robinhood -like brand and following around their particular niche, but Vincent is aiming to benefit from rising tides and users eyeing diversification.
“[Our partners] are really heads down often on a lot of curation around a specific deal and trying to become experts in that space,” Rubin tells TechCrunch . “What we’ve learned is that the investor is thinking more about trying to get exposure to alternative investments and not only do they want exposure to one alternative investment, they want exposure to the entire asset class.”
The company currently has partnerships with about 50 platforms, Rubin tells me, including platforms like WeFunder, SharesPost, Rally Rd. and Otis. The deals which span real estate, venture, collectibles, and art, among others, bring Vincent users access to $2 billion worth of investments, the company says. Users visiting Vincent are asked whether or not they are accredited which routes them to the list of deals they have access to.
Similar to Kayak, people are using Vincent to source the deals, but once they find an asset that tickles their fancy, they’ve being redirected to the partner platform’s site or app in order to actually carry out the deal. Once a user carries out an investment on said platform, Vincent receives a standard fee from the partner platform.
Vincent’s main challenge is building up a brand that resonates with users without actually managing the actual investments themselves. Most of these partner platforms, as Rubin notes, are built around curating and developing an expertise around a specific niche, whether that works in a broader scenario is the big question.
“The whole goal of an aggregator is to really simplify an experience where the market is massively fragmented,” Rubin says.
Vincent is also aiming to be more than an aggregator, serving up editorial content with a blog and newsletter that the team hopes can make the platform more of a one-stop-shop for investors looking to educate themselves on alternative assets. For his part, Rubin hopes that the gold rush of startups building alternative investment platforms is the perfect time for a player to come in that focuses on streamlining everything.
