The fact that private markets have not yet taken off with private investors in Germany is probably due to two things: the relatively high entry hurdles (“Would you have 100,000 euros by any chance?”) and the lack of awareness of the asset class among these investors. Which is a shame, because we are increasingly encountering private equity investments in everyday life. But something seems to be changing.
While researching this article, I was surprised to realise that I have been working with start-ups and scale-ups for years that have long been established on the market: whether it’s DeepL for translations, our electricity supplier Octopus or WISE, our commercial bank … okay, the latter has been a listed company for four years now, but we were already using WISE before that. I also travelled with Flixbus, although the green buses took the “sale to industrial and PE investor exit” before going public.
Private individuals have known and used such software-driven platform models for some time now; they know the brands – but can they invest in these companies as well? Not a chance! Private market investments in Germany remain primarily the domain of institutional investors with correspondingly deep pockets.
What robo-advisors and fintechs demand as a minimum investment
But that seems to be changing …
I recently received a letter from one of the two robo-advisors I trust: “Now available: Private Equity”, Scalable Capital wrote to me. “You can now diversify your portfolio with private equity (PE) as an additional asset class, giving you access to investment opportunities outside the stock market.” And I can participate from an “initial minimum investment” of 10,000 euros in the BlackRock Private Equity ELTIF, it goes on.
At Liqid, you can enter the world of private equity from 10,000 euros via the Liqid Private Equity NXT. One year after its launch, the fund has already raised over 200 million euros, making it, according to Citywire, “one of the fastest-growing ELTIFs in Germany”. Many traditional fund providers would be delighted to see such high inflows in such a short space of time!
Moonfare, which modestly calls itself “one of the largest digital platforms for private equity investments”, also accepts private investors from 10,000 euros. Their money flows into the Moonfare Private Markets Portfolio ELTIF via a somewhat complicated structure with so-called “feeder funds”.
Fintech Nao allows even cheaper access to the private markets – the Berlin-based company offers investments from just 1,000 euros via its platform, although not in private equity, but in the Private Credit ELTIF from Muzinich & Co.
ELTIFs 2.0: vehicle of the hour
Regardless of who the provider is or the fund company behind it, the preferred investment vehicle is always a “European Long-Term Investment Fund” (ELTIF). Such regulated investment products may invest in alternative, unlisted financial instruments such as private equity, private debt, infrastructure and property.
“ELTIFs are intended to support the transformation of the European economy towards greater sustainability and the expansion of infrastructure, which cannot be achieved without the participation of non-governmental investors,” the analysts at Scope stated in their report “A new era” just over a year ago.
There are still only around two dozen ELTIFs authorised or announced on the German market.[1] However, with the reform of ELTIFs at the beginning of 2024, this form of investment, which has been in existence since 2015, has become more consumer-friendly – with lower minimum contributions and simpler evidence of an investor’s financial experience.
A cumbersome form of investment for “spoilt” retail customers
Nevertheless, ELTIFs and investments in private markets in general still have a few problems to contend with, which make them cumbersome for the average retail customer spoiled by trading apps.
Firstly, there is their long-term nature (“recommended minimum holding period”), which can range up to five, seven or even ten years in an investment. Then there is the limited liquidity – there are no daily purchases and sales, as customers are used to with other forms of investment.
The lack of standardisation of these products, which are not publicly accessible, also makes it difficult to compare ELTIFs with one another. An additional obstacle is that many private investors (and some sales teams on the provider side, as well) still know too little about this relatively new form of long-term, semi-liquid investment.
Generic communication educates investors
In this environment, communication is therefore not a “nice to have” but a business case.
For the issuing investment companies (the “General Partners”), active, continuous communication helps to shorten their fundraising process and ensure that their previous investment successes are recognised by institutional investors (the “Limited Partners”). For inexperienced private investors, in turn, generic public relations and marketing make an important contribution to investor education in this early phase of ELTIFs.
Fintechs and robo-advisors on their side are already helping to make private markets more acceptable to private clients. Their increased advertising in this direction suggests that they see big business in private equity, private debt and infrastructure ELTIFs. In addition, representatives of large fintech companies and asset managers are currently calling for ELTIFs to be taken into account in the reform of the state-subsidised pension.
Who knows, perhaps the abbreviation “ELTIF” will roll off the tongue of private investors in a few years as easily as “ETF” does today.
[1] Source: Cash, research based on ESMA data (issue 06/2025)
