When we started our international coffee company in Colombia in 2017, we raised the initial capital from individual accredited investors. Instead of working with large venture capital or private equity firms, we pitched directly to high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs). Back then, a focus on individual investors rather than institutions for early-stage company financing was rarer than it is today. We have found incredible strengths in this alternative funding strategy.
Individual investors want unique early-stage opportunities. For this breed of investor, a high potential for returns is non-negotiable. These investors usually demand reasonable business valuations. They require transparency and communication and are attracted by new markets and opportunities.
As U.S. citizens working in Colombia, we have since grown the Green Coffee Company into the largest producer of the country’s national product–coffee. To finance the business, we raised over $60 million from more than 450 individual accredited investors. This June, we raised an additional $25 million in Series-C funding–a bright spot in LatAm funding according to Crunchbase.
There is an appetite for global alternative direct investments
Many HNWIs are looking for alternative investments internationally, where they can invest directly in the companies of their choice. At the same time, these same investors often share with us their distrust of traditional private equity and venture capital firms that offer them a “blind fund” investment model.
The demand is there, without question, for business sponsors who can offer accredited investors the opportunity to make direct investments into businesses with high return potential in international markets. The millions in investment that we have brought to Colombia serve as evidence.
Investors want early-stage opportunities outside of tech
When people hear about early-stage private company investing they think only of San Francisco and Silicon Valley. The reality is that even though they dominate the news, tech companies only make up a portion of private companies.
From what we have seen with our investors, there is a very large pool of HNWIs who want to invest in private businesses outside of the sky-high valuations common to the tech world. Businesses with tangible assets and profits are back in style.
The sophistication of global high-net-worth investors
We’ve seen a great amount of commentary recently arguing that investors should not need to see financial projections for early-stage companies before investing because they can never be accurate, essentially stating that financial modeling is dead.
Much of this mindset towards capital-raising comes from the tech sector where even the world's largest venture firms are guilty of under-diligencing companies due to their fear of missing out (or of leaving fees on the table). This is the opposite of how our investors tend to behave when deciding where to place their capital–capital they often had to build a successful business themselves to obtain.
HNWIs want to understand valuations and the expected financial performance of early-stage companies. Expect diligence, real diligence. Expect investors to hold company management to their forecasts post-investment, provide input, and share criticism. Investment capital must be earned.
High returns are non-negotiable to attract capital to new jurisdictions
To stand out in a crowded investment landscape, businesses need to have the ability to provide superior returns. In alternative investments, total returns are by far the most important factor. Investors often penalize alternative investments due to their illiquidity as compared to publicly traded securities.
In the end, investors need to see a liquidity premium on their private market investments. To push outside their comfort zones and invest in individual portfolio companies at an early stage or in an emerging market, our clients want to understand how a business can reasonably achieve significant upside. In our experience, U.S. accredited investors will demand a reasonable path to 30-50% annualized returns.
Capitalism has not changed as a result of the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) push. Rather, our investors see ESG best practices as a means to an end. They understand a business has limited upside if ESG practices are not considered and implemented. However, presenting investments solely or predominantly on their ESG characteristics is a fool's errand.
Communication is almost as important to investors as returns
Investors want more transparency and better communication than most traditional VC or private equity fund managers provide.
Quarterly presentations to go over a plethora of portfolio companies with no depth provided (the status quo of current fund reporting) are no longer sufficient. Investors want to be able to ask investment managers questions and receive real-time answers. It sounds like an exaggeration, but we have found that there is no way to over-communicate.
Leverage the opportunities that new markets present
Many of our investors have never been presented with an investment opportunity from Latin America, a region that is oftentimes overlooked because of headlines about sky-high inflation in Argentina or the complete meltdown of Venezuela. However, these outliers are not representative of the region.
Discounting LATAM as uninvestable is a mistake–and our investors have appreciated our contrarian approach. Investors are eager to hear new ideas from new geographies. We recommend that other founders leverage the opportunities that new markets present.
Many U.S. accredited investors are ready, willing, and able to invest in new markets if the opportunity is unique and big enough to warrant their attention. There is currently a very competitive market for capital. Not all businesses will get funded, nor should they. Investors nowadays want to see real profits and reasonable valuations. We want to see more international businesses get funded. There are, however, some unbreakable rules to follow.
Cole Shephard is the founding partner of the alternative asset manager, Legacy Group, and the founder and a board member at the Green Coffee Company. Cole formerly worked at PwC in accounting, advisory, and consulting solutions across the United States, Bermuda, Hong Kong, and Beijing.
Adam Jason is a partner at Legacy Group and a board member at the Green Coffee Company. As an attorney, Adam has advised Fortune 500 companies and leading investment banks through initial public offerings and offerings of debt and equity securities exceeding an aggregate of $10 billion.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
More must-read commentary published by Fortune:
- The FIRE movement is soaring in popularity–but early retirees report feeling lost and unfulfilled
- U.S. chip efforts have focused on advanced semiconductors–but low-tech legacy chips could give China an unexpected edge
- ‘The Feckless 400’: These companies are still doing business in Russia–and funding Putin’s war
- Daniel Lubetzky: ‘You can’t make big ESG commitments while failing at the basics of kindness’
