🚀 The Retail Investor Revolution Is Here

Goldman Sachs just released data that should change how every founder thinks about raising capital.

Retail investors are set to account for at least half of all private market flows in the next two years, according to 56% of institutional investors surveyed.

Read that again. Half. Of all private market money.

This isn't a trend. This is a complete transformation of how capital works.

Retail investors now account for about 20.5% of daily U.S. equity trading volume in mid-2025, up from around 10% a decade earlier. 

And they're not stopping at public markets.

Private markets have grown 3.5 times since 2014. The number of private equity-backed companies has doubled compared to public companies. And retail investors are pushing into this space faster than anyone predicted.

Here's what Goldman Sachs is seeing: 83% of limited partners expect to deploy the same or more capital in 2025 across private market strategies. The appetite is massive.

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon publicly supports expanding retail investors' access to the private markets, even acknowledging there will be bumps along the way.

Translation? The old gatekeepers are opening the gates. And retail capital is flooding in.

🏆 Big News: We Just Won an Award

Speaking of transformations, I've got some exciting news to share.

Space Funding was just named Most Disruptive Founder-Friendly FinTech SaaS 2025 – Massachusetts by Acquisition International.

We were selected from over 50 top startups in the category.

This one hits different.

When we started Space Funding, the goal was simple: democratize access to private market investing by making capital raising as easy as launching an online store.

Give founders the tools to own their data, control their investor relationships, and tap into the massive retail investor market that traditional VCs ignore.

Turns out, that approach was disruptive enough to get recognized.

But here's what this award really means: it validates that the future of fundraising isn't about chasing a few institutional investors. It's about building systems that connect founders directly with the millions of retail investors who want access to private market deals.

And we've built exactly that system.

📈 Why This Matters for Your Raise

Let's connect the dots.

Retail investors are taking over private markets. The number of people moving money into investment accounts reached its highest levels since 2021 in early 2025, with dollar amounts transferred eclipsing the prior peak.

The average age of a retail investor is now 33 years. Nearly half of new brokerage accounts were opened by investors from diverse ethnic communities, while women aged 18 to 35 increased market activity by 26%.

This is a young, diverse, tech-savvy investor base with capital to deploy and a hunger for access to deals that used to be reserved for the ultra-wealthy.

And they're investing through platforms, not traditional channels.

At Space Funding, we've been building for this exact moment. We've helped companies raise over $210 million by treating capital raising like e-commerce—beautiful funnels, paid ads, data ownership, and perks that turn investors into brand ambassadors.

The companies that win in 2025 and beyond won't be the ones still pitching VCs for months. They'll be the ones who tap into retail capital at scale.