YieldStreet, the alternative investment platform working to change the way wealth is created, announced that it has closed a $113 million financing round. The round includes $12.8 million of Series A equity financing co-led by Greycroft and Raine Ventures, as well as a revolving credit facility of $100 million from a New York based family office. Additional equity investors include Saturn Ventures, Expansion Venture Capital, the Family Office and FJ Labs.
Alan Patricof, co-founder of Greycroft and one of the pioneers of modern private equity as the founder of Apax Partners, will join the YieldStreet advisory board. Ian Sigalow of Greycroft, Gordon Rubenstein of Raine Ventures and a representative from the Family Office will join YieldStreet’s board.
The equity capital will help enable YieldStreet to accelerate the transformation of wealth creation by investing in further product innovation and growing its loyal community of investors. The raise comes as YieldStreet reached a tipping point in 2017, almost tripling prior year originations and surpassing $250 million raised by retail investors at the end of the year.
“With the ultimate mission of ‘Prosperity for All,’ YieldStreet is making it possible for individual investors to have wealth creation opportunities similar to the top 2%,” said Milind Mehere, CEO of YieldStreet. “This funding will enable us to bolster our machine learning and data analytics capability for predictive underwriting models, launch new products for non-accredited investors and further fuel our growth towards our mission. I am excited to work with this strong syndicate of investors who understand this opportunity.”
With opportunities across diversified alternative asset classes in real estate bridge loans, litigation finance, and commercial finance, YieldStreet has experienced surging demand with certain multi-million dollar portfolios selling out in seconds. Prior to this financing round, YieldStreet had been incredibly capital efficient, having raised only $3.7 million in equity capital to achieve the $250 million origination milestone.
Amid this demand, YieldStreet had outgrown its current credit facility. The $100 million revolving credit facility will allow YieldStreet to continue to scale its pipeline of investments, pre-fund originations, and expand its offering to new asset classes and investment vehicles. “We believe this facility will enable us to cross $1 billion in originations this year and create a strong revenue stream. Our ability to fund deals of up to $50 million is expected to give us access to a broad range of quality offerings and managers,” said Michael Weisz, Founder & President of YieldStreet.
“Before YieldStreet, retail investors never had access to institutional quality alternative products,” said Alan Patricof. “We believe that YieldStreet’s leadership team is unmatched and well positioned to deliver on its mission to transform investing. It is the future of retail investing and YieldStreet is leading the way.”