Real estate: the most resilient Regulation A+ vertical

Turner points to real estate as the most consistently strong Regulation A+ vertical the platform has seen. His explanation centers on a structural difference between real estate and operating companies: unlike a technology startup, where the departure of two or three key people can cause the business to dissolve, a real estate holding generally persists even as management changes, because the underlying assets still exist. That persistence, in Turner's view, makes real estate read as a more conservative investment to the retail investors evaluating it.

Real estate also draws investors who already believe they understand the asset class but lack the time or capital to buy another property directly. A Regulation A+ real estate offering gives that investor exposure to the asset class without taking on the operational burden of ownership.

Turner cites Fundrise as the vertical's clearest proof point, describing it as the first company to bring a real estate offering to market under Regulation A+, in the summer of 2016. He characterized Fundrise as having raised "well over two billion dollars" cumulatively across its Regulation A+ offerings since then.

That figure is Turner's own estimate, offered in conversation rather than drawn from a cited filing.

Biotech Regulation A+ fundraising: why institutions pass, and retail investors don't

Turner describes biotech as "wonderful and terrible at the same time" within Regulation A+, and the tension he identifies plays out differently depending on who the investor is.

The wonderful part, in his framing, is that people care about diseases that touch their own families. Investors with a parent or friend affected by Alzheimer's, cancer, or another serious illness are motivated to back a company working on the problem, and that motivation shows up in how they invest.

The terrible part shows up with a different investor type. Turner says accredited and institutional investors tend to approach biotech more cautiously because of how long, and how capital-intensive the FDA clinical trial process is. That caution does not show up the same way with Main Street investors. According to Turner, retail investors who believe in a company's mission are more likely to, in his words, "vote with their feet" and invest on emotional conviction rather than a clinical-stage risk calculus.

The practical result, per Turner, is that biotech and certain med-tech companies can be easier to fund through Regulation A+ than through traditional institutional channels, precisely because the investor base that Regulation A+ opens up responds to mission and story rather than the trial-phase math that gives institutional investors pause.

The founder risk that can undercut biotech's advantage

A separate risk Turner flags sits with the founders themselves, not the investor base. He describes a pattern among some biotech companies led by highly capable scientists: a tendency to over-analyze and to assume they can master every dimension of the business, including areas outside their scientific expertise. That tendency can lead a founder to focus intensely on the wrong strategic question, at the expense of the ones that actually determine whether the raise succeeds.

Turner is candid that this pattern has cost his platform strong outcomes” with “prevented biotech companies from making great decisions. He describes working with companies that had a real chance of a successful raise but instead pursued a direction he viewed as unlikely to work, driven by founder conviction rather than market signal. His read is that this shows up most often in people accustomed to being the most technically knowledgeable person in the room, a habit that does not always translate well to the strategic judgment a capital raise requires.

The distinction matters for founders assessing their own fit: a favorable investor psychology tailwind for biotech, as described above, does not offset founder-level execution risk. The two are separate variables, and Turner's experience suggests the second is more within a founder's control than the first.

"Relatable tech": why batteries carse and airplanes raise easily online

The third vertical Turner highlights does not map neatly to a single industry category. He calls it "relatable tech": hardware and materials-focused companies building something a general audience can immediately understand and want, rather than a product that requires specialized knowledge to evaluate.

His examples center on batteries, airplanes, products that have obvious appeal. The appeal, in his telling, is that almost anyone can grasp the benefit without needing an explanation of the underlying chemistry.

Turner ties this back to a practical filter he applies before taking on a company for an online raise: whether the story can be explained and made compelling in roughly fifteen to twenty seconds. Regulation A+ marketing happens largely online, where a company cannot count on a thirty-minute meeting to make its case. By his account, this filter has led him to decline strong companies with legitimate opportunities, because their story was too complex to land quickly in an online format, even when the underlying business was sound.

Self-qualifying your vertical before you commit to Regulation A+

For founders weighing Regulation A+, Turner's observations point to three questions worth asking before committing to the channel:

• Does the business hold value that survives beyond a small group of key people, the way real estate assets generally do?
• Does the mission connect to something investors care about emotionally, independent of the technical or regulatory risk that might give institutional investors pause?
• Can the core value proposition be explained clearly in under twenty seconds to someone with no background in the field?

None of this is a guarantee of fundraising success. A strong fit with these patterns does not eliminate the founder-level execution risk described above, and it does not apply equally to every company within these broad categories. Regulation A+ outcomes vary by company, offering structure, market conditions, and execution.

Want the full conversation?

This article draws on a conversation between Rod Turner and Jason Fishaman on the Test Optimize and Scale podcast, where Turner goes deeper into these examples and several others. Watch the full episode above to hear the unedited discussion, or on YouTube: Rod Turner on Raising Millions Online: 7 Startups, 4 IPOs, and What Actually Works

Founders evaluating whether real estate, biotech and med-tech, or relatable hardware and materials tech fits a Regulation A+ raise can also reach the Manhattan Street Capital team directly at [email protected].

Important information

This article is based on commentary from Rod Turner, founder and CEO of Manhattan Street Capital, and reflects his observations and opinions drawn from his experience working with Regulation A+ issuers since 2015. It is provided for general informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute legal, investment, or financial advice, nor an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any security. Regulation A+ offerings involve risk, including the risk of loss of principal, and no statement in this article should be read as a guarantee or implied guarantee of any investment return or fundraising outcome. Prospective issuers and investors should consult qualified securities counsel and other professional advisors before making decisions related to any Regulation A+ offering.

Source timestamps

The claims in this article are drawn from Rod Turner's conversation with Jason Fishman on the Test Optimize and Scale podcast. Approximate timestamps below point to where each topic is discussed in the source interview:

• Real estate as the most resilient vertical, key-person risk, and the Fundrise example: 15:35–16:39
• Biotech as "wonderful and terrible," and why institutional investors are more cautious than Main Street investors: 16:51–18:06
• The founder-level risk among some biotech scientist-founders: 18:06–19:16
• "Relatable tech," batteries and materials science, and the fifteen-to-twenty-second explainability test: 19:21–21:15

Timestamps reflect the source recording as provided and may vary slightly from the publicly posted episode depending on any edits made before publication.