To most retail investors it’s extremely important that their investment portfolio matches their risk profile. This means that their portfolio reflects their appetite for risk and reward opportunities. With any risk profile, therefore, the mix and distribution of asset classes matters. That's at least the theory - but how many investors actually have a well-diversified financial portfolio that matches their risk appetite? In reality, most investors have a very strong focus on just one or two asset classes, which often unintentionally makes their financial portfolio much riskier than investors would actually like. This is partly because the need for diversification is underestimated, but more importantly because many asset classes that lend themselves very well to diversification are not accessible to the average retail investor due to high minimum investment requirements.

Portfolio Diversification

The impact of having an inadequately diversified portfolio became apparent to many young investors during the Covid-induced stock market collapse of 2020. Investors heavily invested in ETFs, stocks, and other mainstream investments found out what a high positive correlation means: when one investment crashes, so do the others. This bitter experience has led many retail investors to look for alternative asset classes that measure low correlation to mainstream assets and still deliver stable and good returns. Ioana Surdu-Bob, Lena Sonnen, and Eran Peer of FinTech Konvi had the same experience. As retail investors, they recognized the need for effective portfolio diversification in the midst of the Corona crisis and found that most good alternatives were not accessible to retail investors. To solve this problem, they developed Konvi. The founders believe that financial investment vehicles should be accessible to every retail investor, regardless of their portfolio size.

What is Konvi?

Konvi is a crowdinvesting platform that makes alternative, traditionally-exclusive asset classes accessible to retail investors. Through Konvi, one can invest in alternative assets such as rare luxury goods or collectibles without having to be an expert. The concept works as follows: Through the Konvi platform, existing renowned specialists and investment vehicles such as The WatchFund, CultWines, etc. can make their investment service available to smaller retail investors. WatchFund, for example, has been giving large investors and high-net-worth individuals the opportunity to invest in rare watches for more than 10 years and enjoys a track record of 20% average historical return per year. WatchFund, however, has to date only been available to selected clients with a minimum investment of $250,000. Likewise CultWines, an investment vehicle for rare wines and wine portfolios, with assets under management of £200 million. The full CultWines service is only accessible to investors with a £25,000 minimum investment.

Konvi's mission is to make traditionally-exclusive asset classes accessible to everyone and to provide a platform that makes effective portfolio diversification with these asset classes as simple as ordering a book online. In doing so, Konvi's app allows investors of any size to buy shares in a rare watch or a wine portfolio for as little as €250 through the principle of "fractional ownership”. In the near future, Konvi will also allow its users to invest in whiskey, art, rare handbags or even classic cars.

The trend of fractional investments

In general, traditionally-exclusive asset classes have fortunately been made more and more accessible in recent years. Since 2019/20, there has been an increasing opportunity for investors to buy "fractional shares", shares of stocks starting at one euro. This milestone in personal finance has given investors the opportunity to invest more broadly with fewer assets. That is, with €5,000, one can now invest in many different stocks instead of being able to afford only two Alphabet stocks. This is a great advantage for small investors and makes diversified investing accessible to the masses. So traditionally, investors have always needed a certain minimum amount of assets to diversify their portfolio within an asset class. Therefore, it was high time that fractional investing democratized other asset classes and made them accessible to retail investors - Konvi is finally breaking down these outdated barriers to the world of timeless alternative assets.

How does investing with Konvi work?

1. Asset Sourcing

Leading global asset specialists search for rare assets with high potential value appreciation and open these investments to retail investors on the Konvi platform.

2. Crowdfunding

Konvi's users have the opportunity to buy shares in assets listed on the platform at each Initial Asset Offering (IAO) until their funding target is reached.

3. Hold & Earn

After an asset’s target is fully funded, all invested Konvi users hold their investment for a predetermined appreciation period of two to five years. There will also be an option to sell one's shares before the end of this period starting in 2022/2023.

4. Cash out

At the end of the appreciation period, the asset will be sold to collectors or through auction houses at the highest possible price and all invested users will receive their share plus any pro-rata net profit.

What are the advantages?

Diversification and spreading from 250€

With as little as 250€, retail investors can start purchasing shares in alternative investments that hold a low correlation to mainstream asset classes, such as stocks. Therefore assets on Konvi are very suitable for diversification.

Access to leading asset experts

Konvi gives retail investors access to asset experts and investment vehicles otherwise reserved exclusively for large investors and high-net-worth-individuals.

More secure asset storage & insurance

All assets are securely stored and insured.

Protected Investment

If a target value for an asset is not reached within 3 months, every invested user gets a 100% refund. In addition, the assets are held in independent companies (SPVs). These SPVs are solely responsible for buying, managing, and selling the assets after the holding period. Since these SPVs are 100% legally independent from Konvi, the investing users are protected from all risks related to Konvi, even in case of insolvency.

CO2 Neutral

Since day one, Konvi has been a carbon neutral platform by offsetting its CO2 emissions by planting trees on a regular basis.

Regulated with the Irish Central Bank

Konvi is registered and regulated with the Irish Central Bank as a crowdfunding platform.

Even if diversifying seems annoying or unnecessary for some, it makes a lot of sense to invest your money safely in the long term. Now there are finally new ways to diversify your portfolio with alternative asset classes without having to put a vintage car in your garage that is as expensive as real estate.

Join now and diversify your portfolio!