The RIA says that giving its clients a more accessible route into VC is an important way to stand apart from its competitors, particularly at a time when the focus on private market investing has been so strong.

GoalVest Advisory, a female-founded RIA operating from the World Trade Center in New York, has launched its Venture Growth Fund, aimed at high net worth investors.

The fund follows the firm’s approach of using multi-channel deal sourcing, covering market trends such as AI, climate technology, defense, software-as-a-service, certain consumer sectors, and fintech. 

GoalVest has invested in mid-to-late stage VC-backed companies in prior funds including: OLIPOP (soft drinks), CoreWeave (cloud computing), Anduril (defense), Insomnia Cookies (baked foods), Klarna (fintech), Apollo.io (sales tech), Redwood Materials (batteries), Armada Systems (supply-chain logistics), Shield AI (aerospace and arms tech), Aplazo (payments), Cents (business management software), Cargomatic (logistics), and Animoca Brands (game software).

“Almost 90 per cent of US companies are private, so giving clients the ability to invest in venture capital has been an effective way to capture growth and, we believe, has differentiated us from our RIA peers,” Sevasti Balafas (pictured), founder and CEO of GoalVest Advisory, said. (She founded the business in 2017.)

Sevasti Balafas

GoalVest is expecting to raise at least $50 million for the closed-end fund. 

The fund requires investors to put in a minimum of $250,000, making it more accessible than typical VC funds; GoalVest says that unlike early-stage VC funds, it provides clients with a shorter time to liquidity.