Alternative Investments - My Top Three Platforms For 2021

Investing doesn’t always have to be traditional. Especially in our internet driven world. At our fingertips we have many alternative ways to invest our excess capital and I wanted to list down three lesser-known platforms and/or ideas in this post that I’ve come across to get some much needed diversification in our lives and finances.

Masterworks — Purchase Shares in Fine Art

The online members only platform allows for serious investors to diversify their assets by investing in shares of fine art. After the onboarding process that includes an interview, you will get access to the latest offerings much like other crowdfunding type platforms. There’s also the secondary market (currently US only), which allows you to purchase other investors shares in different pieces.

Some key advantages of Masterworks are that the barriers to entry to the art market are greatly reduced, as it’s far cheaper than buying whole artworks and also a lot easier than traditional art investing.

Another great advantage that I just touched upon is the secondary market, which allows for more liquidity that wouldn’t be possible otherwise.

I’m not a member of Masterworks yet, but I have been signed up to the platform for quite sometime and the number of art works available has drastically increased, so seems like the team behind the platform know what they’re doing. Also, the introduction of the secondary market features creates a very unique way to make artwork more of a ‘liquid’ assets — so it’s worth checking out further.

Smart Property Investment Platform — Property Partner

Similar to Fundrise in the US, Property Partner in a similar way to Masterworks but with property, allows you to invest in shares of UK property and receive rental income in the form of dividends each month.

With it’s very own secondary market as well, you can have complete control over when and for how much you want to sell your property shares for.

It’s a great platform that I’ve personally used and may be revisiting again very shortly as the U.K slowly rises out of the COVID slump.

You can use my invite code to get some free shares.

Angel Investing in Early — Stage Startups

Either with a little or a lot, investors with a keen eye for trends and technology can use platforms like Seedrs and Crowdcube (now undergoing a merger) to find early stage startups to invest in.

Probably perceived as one of the riskiest of these listed, but with it’s very own secondary market as well, you have the ability to buy into companies you really love for the long-term or sell-out of investments at any point once the funding round has closed on the platform.

Quick tip on crowdfunding investments — Something I’ve been exploring recently is signing up to popular venture capitalist newsletters such as Union Square Ventures (Fred Wilson’s Blog) and A16Z (Andreessen Horowitz) who often share the latest ‘insider’ ideas and stories which can help you filter what potential opportunities to invest in via crowdfunding platforms and so far, like with all the platforms mentioned, the experience from deposits to buying, selling and withdrawing capital has been seamless.

Last words

So I hope you’ve enjoyed this quick list of a few non-traditional ways to get some fun and often much-needed diversification when investing. Now with nothing more than a laptop we have access to hundreds of different opportunities to invest excess capital in a way that aligns with our values and interests.

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