Our $15m Series A

Equi is thrilled to announce our $15M Series A, led by Smash Capital with participation from Vesey Ventures and Montage Ventures. Equi is committed to putting this capital to work on our long-term mission of making elite investments accessible.

“Investors deserve better, safer places to preserve and compound wealth. Equi, uniquely, has built the technology platform and the product capabilities to meet this need at scale. We see the innovation Equi is bringing to the market transforming how mainstream investors will think about their portfolios over the next generation."

-Paul Szurek from Smash Capital

This news coincides with another momentous milestone at Equi – as we become, to our knowledge, the fastest invest-tech platform to reach $100M in AUM. Equi will achieve this milestone in less than one year from launch; following in the footsteps of other great firms that share our passion for putting better financial tools and products in the hands of investors.

We believe our rapid growth can be attributed to these three things:

1. The shift from the “60/40 stock/bond portfolio” to the “50/25/25 alternative core portfolio”
2. Investors are best served with a highly curated and actively managed portfolio of alternatives
3. Our customers are our heroes

The shift from the “60/40 stock/bond portfolio” to the “50/25/25 alternative core portfolio”:

Over the past 20+ years, investors and advisors have increasingly relied on a passive portfolio of stock and bond indexes to grow their wealth. However, with the end of the easy money era and the bull market of the past 12 years, Itay Vinik, Equi’s Cofounder and CIO, has discussed at length the evidence that the traditional 60/40, stock/bond, portfolio is dead (see our latest market calls).One of the “dirty secrets” of the wealth management industry is that every 10-20 years, there are “lost decades” in equity markets where large amounts of volatility cover up the fact that markets are largely moving sideways. The most recent example is 2000-2012, but you can also look at 1969-1981 or 1929-1954. The vast majority of equity returns come during cyclical bull markets, like the one we’ve experienced since 2012.

We believe the solution to this problem is adding a core, 50% allocation, of non-correlated alternatives. The goal of this additional diversification is reducing risk and increasing returns. Thus, this alternative core is key to thriving and growing wealth in a more volatile and uncertain market environment. However, not all alternative investments are created equal, and investors will only receive this full effect if they’re adding top decile investments, which leads to our next point…

Investors are best served with a highly curated and actively managed portfolio of alternatives:

Unlike public markets, where a low-fee broad-based index is often the best way to participate, the private markets are far more vast and opaque. Navigating the private markets requires highly specialized talent, data, technology, and access. Most private wealth managers and banks are restricted to a very limited list of what they call “alternatives,” but these lists are often filled with low-performing brand-name funds and those that can afford to “pay to play.” They’re also passively managed, meaning funds are purchased and left alone.This means, up until now, only the most highly resourced family offices and/or private hedge funds have been able to access a highly curated and actively managed portfolio of alternatives. With the launch of Equi, all that has changed. Equi’s goal is to source top-tier managers and investment strategies from around the world that demonstrate low correlation to capital markets. Equi’s asset management team leverages data on more than 12,600 different funds to create portfolios that are designed to preserve and compound wealth in all markets. The portfolios are actively managed, ensuring that positions are hedged in the most pertinent market situations, such as those seen across this year.To our knowledge, this is the first time individuals can access a diversified portfolio of high quality alternatives with active management and hedging via a simple web-based application!

Our customers are our heroes:

The customers that bet on us early are truly the heroes in this story. They’re the ones that, like us, saw the impending storm and chose to take action. Our customers had a number of traits in common. They refused to settle for the status quo and demanded access to the same investments that belong in a family office portfolio.

• They told us that the best investments don’t show up in marketplaces.

• They wanted diversification, but didn’t want to commit to 7-10 year lock-ups.

  They shared that they’re sick of holding cash and losing to inflation, but didn’t want to take on undue risk by putting more money into the stock market.

• Most importantly, they made it clear that they wanted a trusted partner that could navigate the pitfalls of private markets and work around the clock to grow their wealth.

We will continue to work tirelessly to live up to their standards. To ensure alignment, all of the founders of Equi have our own personal capital invested directly alongside our customers. At the end of the day, we strive to live up to our fiduciary duties and treat our customers’ money as though it’s our own. We wouldn’t ask our customers to invest in anything that we ourselves wouldn’t invest in.Thus far, this trust has been rewarded and Equi’s diversified portfolios are outperforming almost every asset class by a decent margin. Again, these portfolios aim to remain resilient, or even benefit, when the rest of the market is suffering and capitalize on upsides during good markets.

Preliminary estimates point to Equi funds outperforming the S&P YTD by almost 20% through September.

We’re on a mission to provide access to elite investing, but that starts by educating around and redefining what “elite investing” truly means. We invite the skeptical, the discerning, and the elevated investor to come join us on this mission. Now is the time to demand the best, and we’re here to deliver.

-Tory & the Equi Team