For decades, retail investors watched from the sidelines as institutions and ultra-high-net-worth families tapped into the higher return potential of private equity, private credit, and real assets. Barriers like strict allocation caps, accreditation requirements, and fiduciary caution kept these markets largely out of reach. That wall is finally coming down. In 2025, two major policy changes are opening the floodgates for retail access to alternatives: the SEC’s removal of the long-standing 15% cap on private fund allocations within retail closed-end funds, and a White House Executive Order directing regulators to clear the way for alternative assets in defined-contribution plans, including 401(k)s.

Taken together, these reforms mark a turning point. Asset managers now have the green light to design mainstream products with meaningful allocations to private strategies, while retirement savers could soon gain exposure to asset classes once considered the exclusive domain of endowments and pensions. The changes are expected to fuel a new wave of product innovation, accelerate capital formation, and position alternatives as a core component of everyday investor portfolios. For the retail alternatives industry, this is less an incremental step and more the start of a transformative growth phase.

Financial innovation sometimes means getting out of the way of capital formation and allowing all investors to gain the benefits of our robust markets.

– Paul S. Atkins, SEC Chairman

SEC Policy Change on Private Assets in Closed End Funds

For more than two decades, the SEC quietly enforced a ceiling on retail access to private markets. Any closed-end fund that invested 15% or more of its assets in private funds had to limit sales to accredited investors and impose a $25,000 minimum investment. This policy never appeared in statute or formal rules. It operated through the registration review process, but it effectively prevented any asset manager from creating an alternative fund of funds product for retail investors.

That barrier came down in May 2025. In a speech on May 19, Chairman Paul Atkins announced that the SEC would no longer apply the 15% restriction. Director William Greiner reinforced the message , making clear that funds could now allocate more freely to private vehicles without forcing retail investors to meet accredited thresholds.

The industry reacted almost immediately. By the end of July, just weeks after the shift, more than 20 active interval and tender-offer funds updated their offering documents, dropping accredited-only requirements and opening access to a broader investor base. For managers, this change unlocked new flexibility in portfolio construction; for retail investors, it marked a rare chance to gain exposure to strategies once cordoned off behind regulatory red tape. Premium Subscribers to Interval Fund Tracker can access details on accreditation requirements for different unlisted closed end funds.

Executive Order on Alternative Assets in Defined Contribution Plans

On August 7, President Trump signed the Executive Order on Democratizing Access to Alternative Assets for 401(k) Investors, directing the Department of Labor (DOL) to revisit guidance that had effectively discouraged defined-contribution (DC) plans such 401(k)s from offering alternatives such as private equity, real estate, crypto, infrastructure, and other nontraditional strategies.

Previously, fiduciaries approached alternative assets with caution. The DOL’s 2020 Information Letter and 2021 Supplemental Statement heightened obligations and litigation risk, which chilled adoption. The new Executive Order reverses that trend. It instructs the DOL to pursue fiduciary safe harbors and updated standards, in consultation with the SEC and Treasury, to build a solid compliance framework for offering alternatives in retirement portfolios.

A Council of Economic Advisers report released shortly thereafter projects that broader access to alternative investments could boost long-term retirement outcomes, enhancing diversification, improving risk-adjusted returns, and particularly benefiting younger savers. The study estimates as much as $35 billion in additional GDP over time as more capital flows into private markets.

For asset managers, the implications are massive. DC plans oversee more than $9 trillion in U.S. retirement assets. Even limited adoption of alternative asset “sleeves” in target-date funds or professionally managed accounts could trigger hundreds of billions in new inflows to private strategies.

Additional Tools and Resources

For comprehensive competive intelligence on the unlisted CEF industry, sign up for a Premium Plus Membership.  

To access the industry’s most complete dataset covering NT BDCS, NT REITs and Opcos, sign up for Alternative.Investments Pro.   Its an essential resource for anyone involved  in product development, investment research, or due diligence within the retail alts space.  

  We also have a lot of data available for free:

• Complete list of all active interval funds 
• Complete list of all active tender offer funds
• Non-traded REITs
• Non-traded BDCs
• Conglomerates, Opcos, and other alternative funds.

Interested in advertising on or Alternative.Investments or Interval Fund Tracker? email jacob@intervalfundtracker.com to learn about partnership opportunities.

Holding alternative investment funds that you need to exit quickly? We also have liquidity solutions for unlisted securities

Infrastructure is a component of real asset investing that focuses on the distribution of goods, people, and resources. Examples of economic infrastructure assets include ports, airports, tollroads, bridges, energy distribution networks, and data centers. Examples of social infrastructure include education facilities, hospitals, and government buildings.

Infrastructure assets have several highly favorable characteristics:

• long useful lives;
• high barriers to entry;
• essential to the functioning of society;
• monopolistic market positioning;
• generally stable usage;
• inelastic demand;
• stable cash flows.

According to the 2024 Mercer Investments Large Asset Owner Barometer report, infrastructure is the asset class to which the largest proportion of investors were seeking to add exposure. A growing number of asset managers have launched registered funds to fill the investor demand for infrastructure exposure.

Traditionally, infrastructure investment vehicles have had the challenging “J-curve”, in which a project can generate small negative returns for several years while a project is developed. Institutional investors with large portfolios near infinite time horizons can easily fit investments with a steep J-curve into their asset allocation plan. However, retail investors, as well as many institutions may prefer to invest in assets that are already prdducing cash flow.

Managers can mitigate the J-curve by investing into existing infrastructure on the secondary market, either through operating companies, or other investment funds. Only recently has the secondary market for infrastructure assets become robust enough to make it possible for fund managers to easily offer infrastructure exposure in evergreen investment structures with intermittent liquidity.

Infrastructure Funds: Product Structuring Considerations

Managers looking to launch infrastructure products to the broader market need to match structure and strategy. This requires a careful consideration of the intended investor base, liquidity requirements, as well as accounting and compliance requirements.

Generally, interval funds are more suitable for core infrastructure investments into fully operational assets. Brownfield investments that require additional capex would work better in an Opco vehicle. Value add and core plus strategies that involve a mix of established assets and potential expansions, and generate a mix of current yield and capital appreciation can work in a wide range of fund structures, provided the manager as long as the manager carefully manages liquidity and reporting requirements.

Across different fund structures, there are 16 active registered funds that focus on infrastructure investments as their main strategy. By number, interval funds are the most popular, accounting for half of existing infrastructure funds.

Versus Capital Real Assets LLC, which launched in 2017, is an interval fund with $2.8 billion in assets. It invests in private infrastructure funds, along with timberland and agriculture funds. It has a sub-REIT that makes direct investment into infrastructure assets. There are several other infrastructure nterval funds in the pipeline, or recently launched. For example, the CION Grosvenor infrastructure fund launched the in beginning of 2025 with a $240 million portfolio invested across 43 infrastructure assets.

Although there are a lot of infrastructure interval funds, Opcos still account for the largest portion of assets:

The KKR Infrastructure Conglomerate is the largest example, with $2.6 billion in net assets s of the most recent SEC filings. CIM Opportunity Zone Fund, L.P. is another large infrastructure Opco, with $1.9 billion in net assets. The Qualified Opportunity Zone program can provide tax advantages for infrastructure investments in certain areas. Also notable, Apollo Infrastructure Co has over $700 million in net assets.

The largest infrastructure tender offer fund is the Brookfield Infrastructure Income Fund, which launched in 2023, and already has $2.7 billion in net assets.

A note on fund classification

Note that for purposes of this article  we are excluding funds that mention infrastructure in their prospectus  as one small  part of a broader strategy. For example, AMG Pantheon Fund focuses on PE secondaries, including infrastructure.  Although it has over $4 billion  in net assets, infrastructure strategies comprise  a tiny proportion.  

For a complete list of all funds included, sign up for Alternative.Investments Pro or Interval Fund Tracker Premium Plus.

Additional Tools and Resources

We have a lot of free data available for download:

• Complete list of all active interval funds 
• Complete list of all active tender offer funds
• Non-traded REITs
• Non-traded BDCs
• Conglomerates, Opcos, and other alternative funds.

To access the industry’s most complete dataset covering NT BDCS, NT REITs and Opcos, sign up for Alternative.Investments Pro.   Its an essential resource for anyone involved  in product development, investment research, or due diligence within the retail alts space.  For comprehensive competive intelligence on the unlisted CEF industry, sign up for a Premium Plus Membership.   We also offer group discounts.

Interested in advertising on or Alternative.Investments or Interval Fund Tracker? Email jacob@intervalfundtracker.com to learn about partnership opportunities.

Holding alternative investment funds that you need to exit quickly? We also have liquidity solutions for unlisted securities