How Small Investors Can Invest In The Next Airbnb

We have come a long way since the days of “investing” in your buddy’s Kickstarter campaign. 

Today, even if you’re a small investor, you can be a venture capitalist. You can invest in private equity via solid online platforms that help put private companies in need of funding in front of investors. 

The days of prohibitive minimums and other requirements on the investor side are gone. The days of onerous regulations on the private company side are minimized, relative to going public or getting VC money from a place like Silicon Valley. While the rich — no doubt — continue to get richer, the playing field is a little less lopsided than it used to be. 

In a minute, an idea wet your whistle with what we think is a pretty interesting alternative investment idea. Through the end of the year, The Juice will put quite a few alternative investment ideas (including and beyond private company investing) in front of you. Throughout 2025, we’ll show you how to blend traditional investments with alternatives. Today, we merely scratch the surface. 

But first, how is venture capital investing even possible for small investors? 

Long story, short—

Crowdfunding, made possible by relatively new government regulations, lets businesses, typically small startups, bring in cash from the public to fund and grow their businesses.

Regulations A and CF

Regulations A and CF give non-accredited investors a route to, essentially, be a venture capitalist. While you might not have any say in how the companies you invest in operate, you can participate in their anticipated long-term growth. 

As we mentioned in yesterday’s Juice, private equity investing (and alternatives in general) aren’t designed for you to get rich quick. They’re relatively long-term investments. 

Regulations A and CF made it easier for private companies to accept investments from the general public. 

It used to be that only accredited investors could invest in the private market. Without going into detail, to be an accredited investor, you need to be pretty wealthy.

Regulations A and CF opened private equity investing up to non-accredited investors. The so-called little guys. 

When you peruse the platforms that let you invest in startups (including the two we’ll mention in a minute), you’ll see that many of the opportunities you come across fall under one of these two regulations. 

Regulation A has two offering tiers: Tier 1, for offerings of up to $20 million in a 12-month period; and Tier 2, for offerings of up to $75 million in a 12-month period. For offerings of up to $20 million, companies can elect to proceed under the requirements for either Tier 1 or Tier 2.

For a Tier 1 offering, there are no limits on if or how much you can invest. 

For a Tier 2 offering, if you’re a non-accredited investor, the SEC says you can invest “no more than 10% of the greater of the person’s, alone or together with a spouse, annual income or net worth (excluding the value of the person’s primary residence and any loans secured by the residence (up to the value of the residence)).”

Regulation CF is similar to Regulation A with a few key differences with respect to how much money companies can raise and how much individual investors can contribute. 

WeFunder

Every single morning, The Juice receives emails from a handful of platforms that offer private company investment opportunities. One of our favorites is WeFunder. As part of our ongoing series this year and next, we’ll do in-depth profiles and reviews of all the big players. 

For now, an idea and one thing we like about WeFunder. 

The other day, WeFunder sent us an email introducing its social investing feature. It lets you look at some of the world’s biggest investors — VCs and people such as Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator, Jeff Bezos and Mark Cuban — to see the companies they’re investing in on the WeFunder platform. 

Jeff Bezos (as well as the CEOs of Uber and Salesforce, among others) is investing in a company called Arrived, that allows “anyone to invest as little as $100 in single-family homes and vacation rentals. Investors earn rental income + appreciation right away, and Arrived takes care of all the work typically involved with owning property.”

So, if you follow Bezos on this, you’re not only investing in a startup that — just a few years ago only people like Bezos could invest in — you’re making an alternative real estate play. You don’t need to buy a property and rent it out to tourists. You can make money off of other people’s real estate investments. 

It’s truly the best of both worlds. 

The Bottom Line: And, really, a pretty cool world to be a modern day investor in. 

We can’t stress this enough. It wasn’t long ago when small investors simply could not invest in a company such as Arrived. Today, a platform exists where you not only can, but you do it on the heels of billionaires. 

That said, you’re not following Bezos blindly or for the sake of merely following Bezos. Companies on these platforms make their pitch to investors, discuss past returns (Arrived notes “over $4.5M paid out through dividends to date”) and detail their growth (for example, at Arrived, “Assets under management increased from $6.4m to $58.5m in 2022, and then up 118% year over year to $126M by the end of 2023). 

Often, they’re the real deal. We think Arrived is the real deal. 

You’re not kickstarting your friend’s app. Via private investing that was once only available to the 1%, you could actually be among the first investors in what could be the next Airbnb.

• Wealthy, Young Investors Are Buying Alternative Investments
• Diversify Your Portfolio: Beyond Stocks
• 3 Types Of ETFs You Need To Know About
• Check Out The Juice’s Favorite ETF Screen