The Institute for Building Sciences estimates that every dollar invested in building resilient infrastructure saves $6 in future costs, including economic disruption, property damage, public health crises, and deaths caused by extreme weather disasters. As a result, infrastructure investors can have an outsized impact on communities.

Let's take a look at how InfraShares supports sustainable infrastructure, who's behind the organization, how it works, and whether you should invest in opportunities on the platform.

Who's behind InfraShares?

InfraShares founder Brian Ross was a project manager for a large construction firm and became interested in infrastructure after leading more than 30 combat missions building roads, bridges, bases, and checkpoints in Afghanistan as part of the California Army National Guard – seeing first-hand the impact it has on societies.

After returning home, Ross joined a private equity firm focused on public-private partnerships and pursued an MBA at Berkley. He became interested in exploring alternative funding streams for infrastructure development and founded InfraShares to enable individual investors to champion infrastructure projects worldwide.

How InfraShares works

InfraShares is a crowdfunding platform that lets anyone invest in innovative projects and companies. Like other crowdfunding platforms, the amount you can invest in these opportunities depends on your income and net worth. However, most people can invest at least $2,200 per year in Regulation CF or Regulation A offerings.

Before listing investment opportunities, InfraShares conducts extensive due diligence examining financial and social returns. In particular, they use a 14-point list to determine if the investment can generate lasting economic, social, and environmental benefits by supporting the delivery of public infrastructure.

There are a few steps to invest:

Sign Up – Sign up for free with an email address and password.
Browse Opportunities – Learn more about investment opportunities and ask questions directly to companies.
Make an Investment – Invest using your bank account, credit card, or self-directed IRA. After signing the paperwork, funds are transferred to a third-party escrow.
Wait for Funding Goal – Investments remain in escrow until issuers reach their funding goal. At that point, the escrow is released, and you own shares in the company. Investors receive 100% of their money back if the minimum isn't met.
Manage Portfolio – Track updates and manage investor documents in the Investor Dashboard over time.

Should you invest in InfraShares?

Infrastructure is a critical foundation for economic activity and social life. For example, renewable energy infrastructure helps reduce reliance on fossil fuels while improving air quality, mass transit infrastructure reduces traffic congestion and pollution, and school infrastructure can help create a more educated and higher-earning workforce.

Investing in infrastructure can help provide attractive financial returns along with social and environmental benefits. Using the InfraShares platform, you can invest in everything from sustainable urban farming to emission-free last-mile delivery highways. In exchange, you can receive equity or other types of interest in these projects.

Of course, investing in private companies involves unique risks. The most significant risk is that you cannot quickly sell these securities. In fact, you may have to hold equity securities for several years before a liquidity event (e.g., an IPO or acquisition). And, there's always a risk that you could lose your entire investment.

That said, InfraShares represents a unique opportunity to diversify your portfolio with private investment opportunities. While these opportunities entail greater risk than publicly-traded securities, they could also offer greater upside potential and the ability to provide communities with more sustainable infrastructure.

The bottom line

InfraShares is a crowdfunding platform that lets anyone invest in innovative projects and companies. If you're interested in supporting sustainable infrastructure and are comfortable with the risks, you may want to consider opportunities on the platform for your portfolio.

InfraShares

Who's behind InfraShares?

How InfraShares works

Should you invest in InfraShares?

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