iCapital vs CAIS vs Moonfare vs Yieldstreet: What Filings Show

iCapital vs CAIS vs Moonfare vs Yieldstreet: the filings side by side

People search these names together because each promises access to private equity, private credit or real estate funds that used to need institutional money. The comparison pages that rank for them score features. We compared what each firm has to file, because that is where the legal answers sit: which entity is regulated and by whom, who touches the money, what it charges and what has gone wrong. Every cell below comes from a document we saved on October 12, 2026.

Two cautions about that table. Regulatory assets and Form D sales are different measures: the first is what an adviser manages now, the second is money raised by each feeder since its first sale. And our Form D sums add every entity's latest filing, so money that passed through two layers of feeders can be counted twice.

Who can actually buy from each one

The first thing a reader wants to know is whether they can open an account. The filings answer it more precisely than the marketing.

CAIS: not you, your adviser. CAIS Advisors' brochure of March 27, 2026 calls the CAIS Platform “a business-to-business, proprietary, password protected, alternative investment platform” and says it “is not made available or marketed to retail investors.” Membership is limited to entities that count as an “institutional account” under FINRA Rule 4512(c), plus broker-dealers. CAIS Capital's Form CRS adds that it does not open or hold accounts for you: products are held at your own custodian. If you want a fund on CAIS, the route is an adviser who is a member.

iCapital: through an adviser or a bank. iCapital Advisors' brochure says investors in its funds “may include high net worth individuals and estate planning vehicles, as well as a variety of institutional investors,” and that the minimum commitment “generally ranges from $10,000 to $250,000 depending on the Fund.” Unlike Willow and Moonfare, neither iCapital Advisors nor iCapital Markets shows a client relationship summary (Form CRS), the plain-English document a firm must give retail clients, on the SEC and FINRA databases. That fits the model: the client relationship sits with your wealth manager.

Moonfare: direct, accredited, and $125,000 is the usual ticket. Moonfare Securities USA's Form CRS says it provides “a limited menu of financial services primarily for accredited investors and institutional customers.” The minimums are in Moonfare GmbH's Form ADV: of its 27 private funds, 19 report $125,000, five $75,000, one $25,000 (Moonfare Secondary Fund SCSp), one $500,000 (Moonfare Series Fund I LLC Series B) and one $0. Many of its funds claim Section 3(c)(7), which limits buyers to qualified purchasers, a much higher bar than accredited; our qualified purchaser vs accredited investor guide explains the difference.

Yieldstreet (Willow Wealth): direct, with the smallest tickets. Willow's Form CRS says its broker-dealer places offerings “to accredited investors” and that a managed account needs “a minimum opening balance of $25,000.” Its Form ADV lists 53 of its 120 private funds with a $25,000 minimum, and some much lower.

The feeder layer: what Form D shows

When an adviser buys a Blackstone, KKR or Apollo fund for a client through iCapital or CAIS, the client usually owns an interest in a feeder fund the platform set up, and the feeder files a Form D. We pulled the latest Form D for every entity on EDGAR whose name starts with iCapital, CAIS or Moonfare.

What the census tells a buyer:

• Most of these feeders are for qualified purchasers. In their latest Form D, 446 of the 456 iCapital-named entities, 118 of the 119 CAIS-named entities and 14 of the 19 Moonfare-named funds claim Section 3(c)(7) of the Investment Company Act, which limits buyers to qualified purchasers. None of the 594 reports a single non-accredited investor.
• Most CAIS feeders have not filed since 2022. Of the 119 CAIS-named entities, 82 last filed a Form D in 2022 or earlier and 5 in 2026, against 140 of 456 iCapital-named entities in 2026. A Form D amendment is needed only while an offering continues, so an old date means no new sales have been reported, not that the fund has closed. Its largest by money sold is CAIS Millennium USA LLC, which reports $771,176,552 sold to 1,778 investors in its last Form D (June 7, 2022).
• Moonfare's US series are new. The Moonfare Series Fund I LLC series filed their Forms D in 2026, five naming Moonfare Securities USA LLC as a sales compensation recipient; Series K reports $19,300,000 sold to 15 investors (September 17, 2026).
• iCapital's biggest feeders are hedge and evergreen funds. iCapital Millennium Fund LP reports $1,286,981,530 sold to 2,060 investors (September 15, 2025), and iCapital Infrastructure Investments Access Fund, L.P. $831,873,256 to 2,154 investors (March 6, 2026). 399 of the 456 iCapital-named filings enter $0 as the minimum.

The Form D minimum field is not the real minimum: many feeders enter $0 there, and the offering documents set the actual number. For one fund's feeders across platforms, our Apollo Aligned Alternatives page lists the iCapital, CAIS and AlphaKeys entities side by side.

Moonfare for US investors: the funds in its Form ADV

Moonfare is the hardest of the four to read from the US side, because its adviser is German and exempt from SEC registration. Its Form ADV still has to list every private fund it advises. Of the 27, 13 report 0% ownership by non-US persons, which marks them as the US-facing vehicles; most of the Luxembourg feeders report 30% to 99% non-US owners.

Moonfare GmbH checks the exemption for advisers solely to private funds with under $150 million of private fund assets in the United States, and reports $0 of such assets in Schedule D Section 2.B. An exempt reporting adviser files a shorter Form ADV and no Part 2A brochure, so there is no adviser fee schedule to read; fees are in each fund's subscription documents. The Luxembourg feeders name Luxembourg's financial regulator, the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier, as their foreign regulator.

Fees you can read before you get the offering documents

The iCapital line is the one to read twice. Its fee comes on top of the underlying fund's: the brochure says its access funds are “generally subject to their pro rata portion of any fees charged by the Underlying Fund(s) and the Underlying Manager(s).” A feeder buyer pays two layers; a direct buyer of the same fund pays one, but needs a far larger minimum.

Regulatory record

The iCapital Markets entries need context. BrokerCheck files them under AlphaKeys Fund Advisor, and the events describe UBS entities (UBS Fund Advisor, UBS AG) between 2009 and 2019. None is an action against iCapital's own business. The Yieldstreet order is the opposite case: the SEC found that YieldStreet sold a $14.5 million ship-scrapping note offering in 2019 without disclosing reports that ships backing earlier loans had been broken up or could not be located. Our Yieldstreet review has the order, the class action and the losses, and our Willow Wealth status review covers the company since the rename.

What the filings cannot tell you

• Performance. None of these documents reports a return for a feeder or a platform. iCapital and CAIS feeders pass through the underlying fund's results minus their own fees.
• The actual minimum and fee for one fund. The private placement memorandum and subscription agreement set both.
• Liquidity. Most feeders are closed-end and follow the underlying fund's life. iCapital's brochure mentions a 2025 partnership with Tangible Markets to let investors in select funds “explore secondary liquidity options”; that is not a redemption right.
• Moonfare's adviser fees. As an exempt reporting adviser it files no Part 2A brochure.

What an investor or adviser can do with this

1. Pick the route before the platform. Without an adviser, CAIS is closed to you and iCapital comes through one; Moonfare and Willow are the direct options, at very different minimums.
2. Check your status. A feeder that claims Section 3(c)(7) needs a qualified purchaser; being accredited is not enough.
3. Ask for the feeder's legal name and CIK. Then read its Form D on EDGAR: the date of first sale, the money raised, the number of investors and who was paid to sell it.
4. Add the layers. Feeder fee, underlying management fee, carried interest and any placement fee. The brochures give the ranges; the memorandum gives the number.
5. Look up both entities. The adviser on adviserinfo.sec.gov and the broker-dealer on BrokerCheck, as we did here. Control-affiliate events appear only on the broker-dealer report.

The match service introduces advisers; it does not promise one who is a member of iCapital or CAIS. Ask any adviser which platforms they use and what they charge on top.

FAQ

Sources: SEC Form ADV data files ia100226.zip (registered advisers) and ia100226-exempt.zip (exempt reporting advisers), sec.gov, October 2, 2026; Form ADV PDFs from adviserinfo.sec.gov for CAIS Advisors (CRD 317466), Moonfare GmbH (CRD 319285) and Willow Asset Management (CRD 282487); Form ADV Part 2A brochures of iCapital Advisors (March 26, 2026), CAIS Advisors (March 27, 2026) and Willow Asset Management (March 31, 2026); Forms CRS of Willow Asset Management (May 8, 2026), CAIS Capital (April 7, 2022) and Moonfare Securities USA (January 2024); FINRA BrokerCheck reports for iCapital Markets (CRD 118219), CAIS Capital (154512), Moonfare Securities USA (325838) and Willow Wealth Markets (172295); the latest Form D or D/A of each iCapital-, CAIS- and Moonfare-named entity on EDGAR, read October 12, 2026 (accession numbers in the CSV); SEC order In the Matter of YieldStreet Inc. and YieldStreet Management, LLC, Securities Act Release No. 11230 (September 12, 2023). Sums across entities and counts are our arithmetic. We have no affiliate relationship with any platform named. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.