Because our feed has been blowing up about the injustice of Zebras Unite (uh, that's us) being erased from this article about...uh, us in @TechCrunch we are going to do a thread about what we know and how this happened. tl;dr: Follow the money. https://t.co/f4CaGJwN8n

First off: hello! @marazepeda here. I used to be an economic reporter for places like @planetmoney & @Marketplace. (If credentials are your kink I even graduated at the top of my class from @columbiajourn 🎉) Follow along, friends, as we attempt to unravel this rat's nest.

We get this message: "Uh, WTF there is an article about Zebras without mentioning Zebras." This happens more often than you might think. (What's the best is when men tweak your ideas and then put another name on it like camel and publish in @HarvardBiz)

As a refresher @operaqueenie @JenniferBrandel @operaqueenie + @marazepeda coined the term in this essay written in, ahem, 2017 https://t.co/ipWzgPxfg1 You can see why the @TechCrunch article by @beckshoneyman sounded...familiar but what was really weird is

The examples @beckshoneyman cited of so called Zebra companies? @joinHandshake and @turo? Uh no. Handshake has raised $150M and Turo has raised $450M. These are squarely in the #VC funded 🦄 camp. AS THEY SHOULD BE! No shade to VC! You do you! However...

1/ The big story for #FinTech in 2021?

⏩ Alt Goes Mainstream ⏪

How did we get here? Who are the players? Where do we go next?

Thread 🧵below 👇

And check out Substack for how the confluence of a number of trends will change investing as we know

2/ FinTech has ushered in new waves of access to different types of alternative investments.

Over the past decade, we witnessed a groundbreaking era of democratized access to alternative investments.

Not long ago, it seemed unthinkable that individual investors could ...

3/ 💳 invest in fractions of a loan. @LendingClub
made that possible.

💸 invest $20 alongside Sand Hill Rd VCs into a fast-growing startup. @joinrepublic made that possible.

🏦 invest alongside endowments into a top private equity fund. @icapitalnetwork made that possible.

4/ We have now hit the era of alt alt assets.

People can now invest in everything from classic 🚗 to 🎨 to 🏀 & 🏈 cards thanks to democratized access to investing in real things.

5/ The hype is real.

If there's any cohort of people who view culture as a financial asset, it's Millennials and Gen