StashAway has launched an offering that is designed exclusively for accredited investors.
On March 14, the digital wealth manager introduced its latest product, StashAway Reserve. With StashAway Reserve, accredited investors on the platform can now access private equity and venture capital (PE and VC), angel investing deals, invest in cryptocurrencies and receive wealth advisory services.
According to StashAway, it is the first of its kind in Singapore to offer a full suite of offerings for its high net worth and ultra-high net worth clients.
“Private equity and venture capital are becoming increasingly attractive one for investors: Bloomberg and Burgiss estimate that, compared to the S&P 500, investments in PE and VC have outperformed the S&P 500 by 3.8 times in the last 25 years,” reads the statement by the digital wealth manager.
BlackRock had also announced its ambitions to move the industry from public markets and the traditional 60/40 portfolio, where 60% is made up of stocks, and 40% of bonds, to a redefined 50/30/20 portfolio for “better overall outcomes for investors”. Of the redefined portfolio, 50% and 30% will comprise stocks and bonds respectively, while the remaining 20% should be allocated to private equity.
“The private investments market in Singapore has long been accessible only to ultra-high-net-worth individuals: PE and VC minimums typically start anywhere from US$250,000 ($339,670) to US$1 million per fund, and even with that money at their disposal, many people aren’t able to get into those funds,” shares Amanda Ong, StashAway’s country manager in Singapore.
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“We’ve lowered those barriers to entry for accredited investors. In a given year, clients can get exposure to six to 10 high-quality funds from the world’s leading fund managers, such as Carlyle, KKR, and Insight Partners. And, investments can start as low as US$50,000,” Ong adds.
With its angel investing component, StashAway will collaborate with XA Network (XA) in Southeast Asia to provide its clients with the opportunity to invest in promising early-stage technology start-ups.
XA is the the foremost tech leaders’ investment network in Southeast Asia.
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Through StashAway’s latest offering, clients can become angel investors from as little as US$20,000 a year. They can expect to invest in 10 to 20 start-ups per year.
“XA Network’s members are some of the most senior leaders from Rocket Internet, Gojek, Lazada, Google, Grab, Netflix, and more, and their portfolio companies have also received investments from VCs such as Sequoia Surge, Temasek, and Tiger Global,” says the digital wealth manager.
“Some of the recent start-ups that XA Network members have invested in are Lomotif, Lummo (formerly BukuKas), Nextgen Foods, and Spenmo,” it adds.
With its crypto service under its latest product, StashAway says it has built a feature to invest between 1% to 12% of a general investing portfolio in cryptocurrency. Through the service, accredited investors using StashAway will be able to gain exposure to Bitcoin and Ethereum through two high-quality, institutional-grade exchange traded funds (ETFs).
Finally, accredited investors using the product will be able to enjoy the services of StashAway’s wealth advisory team, including yearly financial planning sessions and bi-annual portfolio reviews.
Michele Ferrario, co-founder and CEO of StashAway, says: “Five years ago, we built StashAway for the mass affluent. Today, high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals make up 20% of our assets under management, and the demand is growing exponentially each month. They’re looking to us because they’ve been so poorly served, and are dissatisfied with the high-fee products they’ve been pressured to buy.”
He adds that “with so much demand from these groups, we’ve designed investment options and an advisory experience specially for them.”
The latest product “offers exclusive access to private market investments that have historically only been available to institutional investors… all at the same low fees and low minimums that clients expect in this day in age,” he continues.
