Yieldstreet Is Now Willow Wealth. Here's What Happened to $208 Million in Investor Capital.

Yieldstreet Is Now Willow Wealth. Here's What Happened to $208 Million in Investor Capital.

CNBC's three-part investigation, completed December 5, 2025, confirmed that Yieldstreet investors lost at least $208 million across 30 real estate deals. The platform had rebranded to Willow Wealth six weeks earlier. The historical performance data vanished from the website around the same time. Boston University finance professor Mark Williams called that data removal "alarming." I agree with him.

TL;DR: The name changed. The loss history did not. Before you commit capital to this platform under any brand, you need to read what happened to the investors who came before you.

This is not a hit piece. It is a full-picture review. Willow Wealth, the company formerly known as Yieldstreet, has real institutional backing, a new CEO with a serious resume, and fund partnerships with Carlyle, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and StepStone Group. Those things are not nothing. But if you are considering committing $10,000 or more of illiquid capital here, you deserve the complete story.

What Yieldstreet Was, and What Willow Wealth Is

Milind Mehere and Michael Weisz founded Yieldstreet in 2015 with a clear pitch: give retail investors access to the same private-market deals that had historically been available only to institutional money. Real estate debt, art finance, marine lending, legal finance. Asset classes with low correlation to public markets and, in theory, attractive risk-adjusted returns. The platform grew to over 500,000 members and deployed more than $6 billion in cumulative investments since launch.

The structure works like this. Yieldstreet Management LLC, a registered investment adviser with the SEC, underwrites or sources deals and packages them as securities offerings. Individual investors fund specific deals or invest through pooled funds. Most individual offerings require accredited investor status: a net worth over $1 million excluding your primary residence, or income above $200,000 per year. The Yieldstreet Alternative Income Fund, now being sold to Mount Logan Capital, required only $10,000 and was open to non-accredited investors.

As Willow Wealth, the model has shifted. The platform's new offerings center on evergreen funds from Carlyle, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and StepStone Group, institutional managers with collective AUM exceeding $11.7 billion across these specific vehicles. Mitch Caplan, the former CEO of E*TRADE, took over as Willow Wealth's CEO in May 2025. The company raised $77 million in a Series D in July 2025, led by Tarsadia Investments with participation from RedBird Capital Partners and Mayfair Equity Partners. That is the version of the story the company would prefer you read. Now let's talk about what happened in between.

The Shipping Disaster and the SEC Fine

Between June 2018 and September 2019, Yieldstreet ran six separate marine finance offerings backed by ship deconstruction loans totaling approximately $89 million. The borrowers, a group connected to the Lakhani family and operating through loan originator Four Wood Capital Advisors in the United Arab Emirates, pledged ships as collateral. Those ships could not be located. Many had already been scrapped, with proceeds diverted rather than applied to the loans.

The SEC's investigation found something worse than bad underwriting. Yieldstreet personnel knew, prior to the final $14.5 million offering in September 2019, that ships backing earlier tranches were missing or had already been deconstructed. They did not tell investors. On September 12, 2023, the SEC charged Yieldstreet and Yieldstreet Management LLC for failing to disclose these known collateral risks. Both entities settled for a combined $1.9 million without admitting or denying wrongdoing.

A federal class action in the Southern District of New York settled separately in 2025 for approximately $9 million ($6.2 million cash plus $2.75 million in waived fees). Then came a detail that captures the platform's relationship with harmed investors as well as anything else could: Yieldstreet recovered $5 million from the marine borrowers in August 2024 and kept the entire amount to cover its own legal and enforcement costs. Investors received de minimis distributions. Yieldstreet pursued the borrowers, won, collected $5 million, and paid itself. I am not telling you that was illegal. The company's counsel apparently concluded it was permissible under the fund documents. I am telling you it happened, and you should factor it into how you think about whose interests this platform prioritizes when things go wrong.

The $208 Million Real Estate Losses

The marine finance debacle was the most legally significant failure. The real estate losses are larger in aggregate and more recent.

CNBC's investigation documented nine defaults out of 30 real estate deals reviewed, a 30% failure rate. The industry standard for real estate crowdfunding default rates runs between 2% and 8%. The failed deals span two states and four projects. At 2010 West End Avenue in Nashville, investors lost approximately $35 million. Stacks on Main, also in Nashville, produced an $18.2 million equity loss. The Houston Multi-Family Fund lost roughly $21 million to foreclosure. A Portland multi-family debt deal went for $11.6 million.

These were not obscure edge cases. Nashville and Houston were among the hottest real estate markets in the country during the years these deals were originated. The losses point to underwriting failures, not just market conditions. Yieldstreet's annualized real estate returns ran at approximately negative 2% from 2015 through 2025, down sharply from a 9.4% gain reported two years earlier. That performance data was removed from the Yieldstreet website concurrent with the October 2025 rebrand to Willow Wealth.

When a company removes its historical returns from public view at the same moment it announces a new brand identity, you should ask why. The company has not provided a public explanation that satisfies Professor Williams, and it does not satisfy me either.

The Fee Problem

High fees do not cause losses. But they make recovery much harder when losses occur, and they create a material headwind on every deal that performs at a middling level.

Yieldstreet's management fees run between 1% and 3% annually depending on the investment type. Individual offerings typically charge 1.25% to 2%. The Yieldstreet 360 managed portfolio charges a 1.25% advisory fee plus a 0.175% expense fee. Add platform-level annual expenses ($150 in year one for SPV-structured deals, $70 per year thereafter), plus historical origination and structuring fees taken at the deal level, and third-party analysts estimate all-in fees of 3.3% to 6.7% per year.

The industry average for comparable platforms runs 1% to 1.5% all-in. Yieldstreet's fee load runs roughly three times higher. On a $25,000 investment at a 5% annual fee drag, you need a 5% return just to break even. On the new Carlyle, Goldman Sachs, and StepStone evergreen funds offered through Willow Wealth, the fees are reportedly higher still. Which raises a fair question: if you want access to a Carlyle or Goldman evergreen fund, what unique value is Willow Wealth adding that justifies a premium over going through iCapital, CAIS, or a wirehouse alternative investment shelf?

What Has Actually Changed

Mitch Caplan built E*TRADE into a consumer-facing brokerage that millions of retail investors used daily. That is a real credential. The question is whether E*TRADE operational experience translates to alternative investment underwriting discipline. The company clearly believes its original problem was platform scaling without institutional-grade deal sourcing. The pivot to Carlyle and Goldman feeder funds suggests it has decided to outsource the underwriting to managers with more credibility than Yieldstreet's internal team carried.

The $77 million Series D closed in mid-2025 with credible institutional backers. The Cadre acquisition, completed in January 2024, added a real estate platform co-founded by Ryan Williams that had fallen from an $800 million peak valuation to a roughly $100 million deal price. The December 2025 Carlyle, Goldman Sachs, and StepStone fund launches represent a genuine expansion of what the platform can offer accredited investors. The platform now holds approximately $1.86 billion in discretionary assets under management across 209 clients per its Form ADV filed November 2025.

There is also a complication worth naming directly. The flagship Yieldstreet Alternative Income Fund is being sold to Mount Logan Capital, pending a shareholder vote. The fund that served as the primary entry point for non-accredited investors is leaving the platform. What replaces it as the on-ramp for smaller investors remains undefined.

How Willow Wealth Compares to the Competition

The table below reflects current platform parameters as of May 2026. It is a starting point for comparison, not a recommendation ranking.

For more on how these platforms handle accredited investor verification and due diligence requirements, see our comparison guide. You may also want to review our analysis of alternative investment fee structures and what they cost in real returns. And if you are sizing a private market allocation, our framework for illiquid positions in a diversified portfolio lays out the math clearly.

The Trustpilot Number Tells You Something, Not Everything

Yieldstreet carries a 1.5 out of 5 rating on Trustpilot, rated "Bad." Only 6% of reviewers gave the platform five stars. A 2023 survey found that 73% of investors said they would not recommend the platform to others. Those numbers are bad. They are also skewed. Investors who lost money are more likely to leave reviews than investors who collected their principal with a decent return. The platform claims 500,000 members. Trustpilot is a sample, not a census.

What the reviews tell you is directional. Combined with the CNBC documentation, the SEC enforcement record, and the fee structure, the direction is clear: a platform with documented underwriting failures and a demonstrated willingness to prioritize its own cost recovery over investor compensation when things go wrong.

Who Should Consider Willow Wealth, and Who Should Not

Here is my honest bottom line.

Consider Willow Wealth only if all of the following are true. You are an accredited investor with a genuine private markets allocation as part of a well-constructed portfolio. You understand that the minimum investment is illiquid for five to seven years, with no guaranteed secondary market and a real possibility of total loss. You have read the offering documents, not just the marketing materials. And you are specifically drawn to asset-class breadth, such as art finance, legal finance, or private credit deals, that you cannot access elsewhere at this minimum threshold.

Do not use this platform if you are a first-time alternative investor who has not yet built a foundation with lower-cost entry points like Fundrise. Do not use it if you need liquidity within five years. Do not use it if you are evaluating Willow Wealth primarily because the Carlyle and Goldman partnerships sound credible. They are credible, but you can access those same funds through other channels at lower fees and without the reputational overhang. And do not treat the rebrand as a clean-slate moment. The $208 million in losses are documented, confirmed, and real. Willow Wealth is the same legal entity that generated them.

The new Willow Wealth may yet build a track record that earns back investor trust. The institutional pivot, the new CEO, and the $77 million in fresh capital are real inputs. Trust in this context is not built through rebranding, though. It is built through transparent performance reporting, which starts with restoring the historical data that was removed, and through a sustained period of deals that close without defaults, SEC inquiries, or class action litigation.

That period has not yet begun. It is May 2026. The platform rebranded seven months ago. The losses it is rebranding away from are still being tallied. Watch the track record. Do not bet ahead of it.

Author Disclosure: Jeff Barnes, MBA has no personal position in any company, fund, or platform named in this article. Angel Investors Network has no current commercial relationship with any party mentioned. AIN provides marketing and education services, not investment advice. Past performance does not guarantee future results. All investments involve risk, including loss of principal.