Last month, TechCrunch wrote an awesome piece detailing Alto’s recent Series B announcement.
For her piece, Anita Ramaswamy of TechCrunch caught up with Alto founder and CEO, Eric Satz, to discuss how we’ll be using this new round of funding to further our mission of making it easy for people of all incomes to invest in alternative assets.
So today we’re recapping the big news, and digging into how we’ll be using these funds to create the best self-directed IRA investment experience possible. Before we discuss how we’ll be using these funds, though, we have to mention the investors behind our $40 million Series B funding announcement.
In Good Company
Led by Advanced Venture Partners-a venture capital firm with a history of investing in companies that are upending industries and making a difference-Alto’s $40 million Series B raise also includes a number of previous investors.
“Alto is attacking an IRA market that, despite representing trillions of dollars in assets, still struggles with antiquated processes and legacy service providers,” said David T. ibnAle of Advanced Venture Partners
Repeat investors include Unusual Ventures, Acrew Capital, Alpha Edison, Foundation Capital, Gaingels, and Coinbase Ventures. The continuing confidence of these investors serves as further evidence to all of us at Alto that we’re on the right track. And we’re grateful to be joined in this venture by industry thought leaders who share our passion for expanding access, choice, and opportunity for millions of Americans investing for the future.
“Alto is attacking an IRA market that, despite representing trillions of dollars in assets, still struggles with antiquated processes and legacy service providers,” said David T. ibnAle, founder and Managing Director of Advanced Venture Partners. David, who has joined our Board of Directors, went on to explain that Alto is removing friction and “enabling investors to seek both better returns and better diversification of their retirement portfolios.”
This announcement follows our April 2021 $17 million Series A raise, led by Unusual Ventures in connection with Sarah Leary, venture partner at Unusual Ventures and co-founder of Nextdoor, who joined Alto’s Board of Directors. Ammar Hanafi of Moment Ventures, an early lead investor of Alto, also continues to serve as a member of the Board.
How Does Alto Plan to Use Its Series B Raise?
Alto is growing fast, and we’re continuously working to make Alto IRA and Alto CryptoIRA® even better. To support this growth and make it even easier to invest in alternative assets using tax-advantaged IRA funds, we plan to hire as many as 100 new Altonians this year, including more engineers and client experience staff.
Doing so will help us enhance our offerings more rapidly while ensuring new and existing clients have the best experiences possible. These funds will also enable us to better collaborate with our more than 75 investment partners (and counting), as well as to advance our mission of educating to drive equality.
Creating self-directed investment solutions that enable and empower people to invest in the opportunities and causes that speak to them is core to our mission. And doing so means bringing together passionate, driven people with a variety of experiences and backgrounds. In fact, finding people who embody our core values and mission to make alternative investing accessible to all is just as important as the technology we’re developing.
Because, as our CEO Eric Satz is so fond of saying, eventually the technology will just be table stakes. It’s the people who truly make Alto.
Alternative Assets for All
While Alto has certainly grown since its founding, our mission has never changed. Alto is here to make investing in alternative assets something anyone can do. And we’re doing that by enabling people of all income levels to invest in alternatives using what is for most people their only source of investable assets: their retirement funds.
Not only do many non-traditional assets have the potential to generate outsized returns; including them in your portfolio is a great way to diversify your investments, which in turn can reduce your exposure to volatility in the public markets.
Whether you’re interested in real estate, art, fine wine, a startup that you believe in, or crypto, chances are that with Alto, you can find the alternative assets you’re interested in. You can even bring your own deals to the table.
Sign up today to start investing in alternative assets with all the tax advantages of an IRA. And stay tuned for more exciting updates from Alto this year!