Hello there,
Welcome to the best of the Altea Community.
This week:
- Loan repaid: Film I closes out an aviation thriller at 23.5% IRR
- DMs are open: Direct messages, now for the whole community
- Rewards, leveled up: New high-end cricket card reward, and refreshed perks
- Female-focused finance: Looking for intros to newsletters & creators
- ️ Auto I: A Pink Floyd–owned McLaren F1 heads to auction. Can the fund stretch to $50m?
- ⛩️ Japan: Time is running out to join this epic trip!
Let’s go
Table of Contents
New Members
Welcome to the 24 new members this week
A few notable members..
Ben Manton is a UK-based domain investor and alt-investment enthusiast, into everything from vineyards and music rights to AI agents.
He’s kicking off a deep-dive interview series with people building and operating in the alts space, and he’s got his eye on Stefan for episode one.
Christine Krzyzanowski is co-founder and CMO of PLLAY Labs, an AI-driven video-game and esports wagering platform.
She also founded The ARK Strategy Group, a certified women-owned firm, and rounds out her profile as a consultant, speaker, and investor.
Joshua Bennett is an independent film & TV producer working between Montana and New York, and the founder of production company Stray Light Visions.
A Babson College grad, he’s spent his career bringing independent screen projects to life.
Altea SPV Updates
Film I: Aviation thriller film has been repaid
We closed out an aviation thriller which was one of the longer-running loans on the Film I books.
- Principal: $365,000
- Repayment: $456,250
- Final IRR: 23.5%
This was of the longstanding loans made early in the Fund that we’d been trying to clean up and get off our books.
While we’d have preferred to recoup the full value of the loan (principal + all accrued interest), I’m extremely proud of the team for how this was handled.
I can’t get into too many details here, but this was a tricky one that got resolved creatively. Nicely done by the team.
New feature: DMs are now open
Big one this week: we’ve turned on direct messages for the entire community.
Here’s the thinking. We’ve wanted to open DMs up for a while. After all, connecting great people is a huge part of Altea.
The one thing holding us back was spam: throw the doors open with no guardrails and inboxes fill with cold pitches fast.
So we went connection-first. Send someone a connection request. If/once they accept, the message button appears and you can DM away.
Go connect with the people you’ve been meaning to reach!
New Reward
Sportsnection Cricket Collector’s Edition Pack
Opening up DMs to everyone had a knock-on effect. Direct-message access used to be one of the perks you unlocked. But now that everyone can message, that’s no longer a reward.
So we refreshed the rewards — pulling out DMs, and introducing a new reward: High-end cricket trading cards, courtesy of our friend and founder Omar Khokhar.
You earn points for posting, commenting, getting likes, and investing in deals.
We also lowered the points requirements for gifts in the middle tiers.
Here’s how the refreshed ladder looks:
- Level 3 (55 points) ☕ — Alts mug
- Level 4 (125 points) — Your choice of a hand-blown whisky or tequila glass
- Level 5 (250 points) — Hand-blown wine glass
- Level 6 (750 points) — Sportsnection Cricket Collector’s Edition Pack
Higher up, Levels 8 and 9 turn into real management-fee reductions for active investors.
You can learn more about Omar and Sportsnection in our special issue: How two friends built a cricket trading card empire
New Events
LA Event: Creative Financing in the Creator Economy (Oct 6)
Creators are building real businesses now — with real revenue, real audiences, and predictable revenue streams.
And a whole new private financing layer is emerging to fund them: advances, revenue-share deals, credit lines, catalog loans, film gap financing.
We’re bringing together the people building that layer for an evening of straight talk on how it works — where the debt & equity opportunities are, how deals get structured, and what it looks like from both sides of the table.
Expert Speakers
Joining our CEO Stefan von Imhof will be a lineup of some of the most active lenders and investors in the creator economy.
Josh Stein — Founder & CEO, Attention Capital
A former leveraged-finance banker and lawyer turned media operator (VICE, Univision), Josh Stein now originates senior secured loans to creators, media, and sports businesses at Attention Capital. He’s built the platform to underwrite creator lending.
Sam White — Co-Head of U.S., Copyright Capital
Fifteen years structuring creator deals across WME, Snap, and partnerships with the likes of MrBeast. Sam White now leads U.S. expansion at Copyright Capital, building financing that fits how creator businesses actually earn.
Corey Livingston — Co-Founder & CEO, Splitz
An investment banker and music-industry operator turned founder, Corey Livingston is building Splitz — the fintech layer that helps creators track their work, revenue, and rights in one place.
The essentials
- Date: Tuesday, October 6, 2026
- Time: Late afternoon into the evening (exact timing to come)
- Location: Los Angeles — venue being finalized (exact address to confirmed guests)
- Price: Free for paying Altea members (use code ALTEA), $50 for guests and everyone else. Includes catered food & drinks.
- Capacity: 20 people max
13 spots taken | 7 spots remain
If you’re in LA and interested in creator economy financing and investing, you don’t want to miss this.
Boston Meetup (Sep 14)
On Sep 14, join me, Stefan, and Chris Daniels from Launch Film Finance our hosting our first ever Boston meetup.
This will be a casual (and probably chowder-filled) evening discussing alternative assets — with a focus on investing in Hollywood bridge loans
We’re in town for one night only, and we’re making it count.
Details
- Date: Monday, September 14, 2026.
- Time: Early evening — roughly 6:00pm to 9:00pm.
- Location: Boston, MA — venue being finalized, exact address shared with confirmed attendees.
- Price: Free for Altea Paid members (use code ALTEA). $50 for everyone else. Includes all food and drinks.
RSVP early to hold a spot.
This is an early RSVP so we can size the room properly. The date is locked in. Other details, including the venue, will follow shortly.
Max capacity reached | Waitlist only
We’re past capacity on this one, but may release another spot or two. If you’re in Boston and interested in alternative investing, you don’t want to miss this.
Private Film Screening in New York (Sep 15)
As part of our autumn roadshow, Stefan, Chris Daniels and I are putting together a film-themed evening in Brooklyn on Tuesday, Sep 15.
The plan is a private screening at Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg, followed by food, drinks, and a proper conversation about Altea’s film investments.
The RSVP page will go live later this week.
Join the New York Group to hear about it first.
New Discussions
MCA rollups: can the 1990s playbook repeat?
Raj R. opened a meaty thread on whether merchant-cash-advance shops can be consolidated the way premium finance was in the ’90s.
“Curious how PE and specialty finance folks here would think about an MCA rollup valuation compared to a traditional lending platform, especially since there’s no 1:1 comp.” — Raj R.
Can the Auto Fund stretch to a $50m McLaren?
Travis Mitchell floated a Pink Floyd–owned McLaren F1 heading to auction — once Nick Mason’s, expected to hit $50m.
“Can we stretch the Auto Fund to pick this one up?” — Travis Mitchell
Japan’s nine million empty houses
In Part 3 of his Investing in Japan series, Hayato Takahashi digs into the akiya opportunity — and why it’s harder than it looks.
“Japan has nine million empty houses, which can be bought for the price of a used car. But renovating and selling is another story.” — Hayato Takahashi
⚠️ New Warning: Adit Ventures
On August 10, the SEC charged New York investment adviser Adit Ventures Management LLC, founder and CEO Eric Munson, and three affiliated general partners with defrauding investors in its private funds.
Adit was a well-known route to hot pre-IPO names: SpaceX, Klarna, Databricks, Flexport, and others.
The SEC alleges that, between 2019 and 2024, the firm misled investors, bought pre-IPO shares itself and resold them to its own client funds at a markup, charged fees the fund agreements didn’t permit, and pledged clients’ shares as collateral for a $10m credit line without telling investors.
The defendants settled the same day without admitting or denying the allegations. Munson has publicly rejected the charges, stating: “I have delivered for my investors, and I reject these allegations completely.”
Did you invest in an Adit fund or SPV?
We’ll set up a private space for affected investors to compare notes and review documents together.
New Public Deal
⚽ Invest in the IP behind an official FC Barcelona VR experience
At our recent Barcelona meetup, Stefan met Jordi van Even, founder of Rooftop Immersive, an extended-reality experience studio.
Rooftop is building one attached to one of soccer’s biggest brands: FC Barcelona. Its flagship experience, A Day in the Life Of, puts fans in the boots of a new Barça player — walking the tunnel, hearing the roar, scoring the winner.
Investment Opportunity
- €500k already raised, €1m left to raise
- Investors become direct shareholders in the HoldCo that owns the IP and platform
- Launch investors acquire ~36% equity, with profits shared pari passu after full return of the €1.47m
This is not an Altea SPV.
New Asks & Offers
Know anyone in female-focused finance media?
We’re looking for warm intros to the people building female-focused personal-finance brands.
Newsletters, social-media outfits, and communities like Female Invest that post authentic money content and reach big, engaged audiences.
Like many companies in finance, our community still skews more male than we’d like. We’re ahead of the industry average, but not where we want to be, and partnering with the folks already doing this well is one of the best ways to change that.
If you know someone in this space, we’d love an intro.
⛩️ Time’s running out for Japan!
Tokyo, sumo, bonsai masters, snow monkeys, and whisky at a private distillery. October 18–22, 2026.
- Price: $3,999 (bring a guest: +$2,999)
- All-inclusive. Everything except flights is covered.
- Only 4 spots left — a $1,000 deposit holds yours, refundable up to 60 days out.
Want in?
That’s it for today!
See you next week, Wyatt & Stefan
