We're opening Altea to everyone
Welcome to the Alts Sunday Edition 👋
I hope you enjoyed last week’s issue on our new Film Lending Investor Portal.
What a week. It’s been a whirlwind managing all the demand (yay!) and fixing some bugs (sorry!)
But best of all, our first bridge loan has officially been repaid. Congrats to the nine folks who invested in this one. You should all have a note in your inbox to confirm payment details.
(If you haven’t checked the portal out, do so now. This is easily one of the most exciting product launches we’ve ever done.)
Today, I’ve got another big announcement...
We’re improving Altea.
Wyatt and I have spent the last few weeks taking a hard look at how Altea membership actually works, and are rebuilding it from scratch.
Here’s what’s changing, and how it affects you.
The short version:
👍 We’re simplifying pricing. There will be two tiers: Altea Free and Altea Paid. That’s the menu.
✅ Open to everyone. You no longer need a paid Altea membership to invest in our SPVs. (Though for larger investors, it’s definitely worth having. More below.)
⬆️ Grandfathered pricing. If you’re already a paying member, no matter what plan you’re on today, you’re coming out ahead. You can keep your rate permanently as long as you’d like.
🏆 The more you invest, the lower your fees. Earn management fee reductions through our Rewards program.
🎟️ Paid membership is your ticket to events. Unlimited local meetups included.
🥳 Join before May 1 and lock in today’s pricing permanently. After that, new members pay published rates.
Let’s go. 👇
The big change: The door is open
Here’s the big headline: You no longer need to be a paying Altea member to invest in our deals. 🔥
Here’s our thinking: Wyatt and I know our deals are great, and we want more people to be able to invest in them. That’s it.
Yes, we’ll take a hit on this. But we’ve realized the most important long-term thing we can do for our community is expand access, not restrict it. And for a while, we were putting up a barrier before we even got there.
That’s over. Our job is to add value, not to put up walls. The new structure reflects that.
Any accredited investor can now access the full Altea deal pipeline. SPVs, film co-invests, everything. There is no annual subscription, no upfront commitment, no wall between you and the deals.
How it works
There are two membership tiers.
Free gets you in the door.
Paid is $99/month, or $700/year. It’s for investors who are deploying at a level where the fee economics make the membership worth it.
The Free tier is exactly what it says. You join, you get access to everything, you invest when something looks right. No subscription, no trial, no expiry. There’s a 3% management fee on your investments. That’s how the platform sustains itself at this level. And we think it’s a fair trade for access to deal flow that most investors can’t get anywhere else.
The Paid tier is for investors who are deploying enough capital that the fee difference (from 3% down to 2%) covers the cost of membership. You also get unlimited attendance at local meetups and eligibility for investor trips.
The question is just whether the math works for you. Let’s look at that.
When it makes sense to upgrade
The difference between Free and Paid is 1% in management fees and $700/yr (or $99/month) in membership cost.
That means Paid pays for itself at around $70,000 of annual deployment. This is the logical breakeven point.
Below $70k, Free is the right call. Above it, the math starts working in your favor.
If you deploy...
$30k/yr: Free costs you $900 in fees. Paid costs $1,300 all-in. Free wins.
$70k/yr: Both land at about $2,100. Exact breakeven point.
$100k/yr: Paid saves you $300/yr — and meetups are included.
$200k/yr: Paid saves you $1,300/yr. The membership fee disappears into the math.
We’re not trying to push anyone to Paid before it makes sense. The upgrade path will always be there for you.
Start on Free, see how you go, and let the numbers tell you when to move.
Events: Membership is your ticket in
Local meetups are one of the best things about Altea.
The conversations that happen in those rooms are genuinely hard to replicate online or anywhere else.
Starting May 1, the policy is simple: if you’re a paid member, you can attend any local meetup. Just show up. No ticket required, no tracking, no limit.
If you’re on the Free tier and want to attend, you’ll need to buy a ticket (usually $99 per event, though some vary). Or you upgrade to Paid, which at $99/month is the same price as a single ticket anyway — and gets you into every event after that.
The more active you want to be in the community, the more the membership pays for itself in ways that go beyond the fee savings.
The more you invest, the better your economics get
There’s something else you need to know: Active investors on Paid can earn their management fee down over time.
The Altea Rewards Program lets you earn perks by doing things that make the community better: adding comments, attending meetups, helping with due diligence, referring new members, writing guest issues.
But by far, the fastest way to earn points is by investing in deals. Each SPV investment earns you 500 points.
At higher levels, those points translate directly into fee reductions:
Level 8 (3,000 pts): You get a 0.25% management fee reduction. So after 5-6 SPVs, your fee drops from 2% to 1.75%.
Level 9 (5,000 pts): You get a 0.5% management fee reduction. So after 9-10 SPVs, your fee drops from 2% to 1.5%.
Free members’ 3% fee is fixed. Rewards reductions apply to Paid only. If you’re investing actively enough to reach Level 8, you’ve almost certainly already found that upgrading is worth it. The Top 50 Altea members are saving thousands.
Points from past activity carry over, so if you’ve been active in the community, you may be further along than you think!
Film investing structure 🎬
The fee structure on our new film lending deals work a little differently from our standard SPV ladder.
Your net return on a film deal depends on your membership tier, and the economics are meaningfully better for paid members.
Note: If you’re already a film investor with us, you don’t need to worry about any of this.
You’re grandfathered into the best available economics on all future co-invest deals, regardless of what tier you’re on. That’s a permanent carve-out. It applies to everyone who has participated in a film deal before May 1.
One more thing: The grandfather window
We’re announcing this today, Sunday, April 26, but the changes don’t go live until May 1. That gap is intentional.
If you’re not a member yet and you’re thinking about joining, join before May 1 and lock in today’s pricing permanently.
Today, Altea starts at $500/year. After May 1, new members will pay the new published rate: $700/year.
Anyone who joins before then is grandfathered forever. So if you’ve been thinking about it, now’s the time. Join Altea Paid here.
Closing thoughts
Our new Free tier is designed to get folks like you into our deals.
We’re proud of the returns we’ve delivered for our investors, and frankly, we want you to be able to enjoy them.
You’re not an Altea member yet. Until now, membership was required before you could see anything. That meant you couldn’t invest in our deals.
Now you can. If you’re accredited, sign up, get full access to the deal pipeline, and invest when something looks right.
Your baseline management fee is 3%, and there’s no limit on how many deals you can do. No subscription, no commitment, no wall. If you reach a point where upgrading to Paid makes sense, it will be there ready for you.
Until then, Free is a perfectly solid place to start.
If you have questions about your specific situation, just reply to this email. We read everything.
We hope to see you in Altea soon! 🥂
See you next time, Stefan & Wyatt
Disclosures
This issue was written and edited by Stefan von Imhof
This issue has no sponsors or affiliate links.
As always, nothing in this issue is investment advice. You must be an accredited investor and pass a KYC check in order to invest in Altea SPVs.