Best SPV Platforms Compared: AngelList, Sydecar, Carta, Allocations, Play Money

Five SPV platforms serve US angel syndicates in 2026: AngelList, Sydecar, Carta, Allocations, and Play Money. AngelList wins on LP network reach for raises above $80K. Sydecar wins on flat-cap pricing with zero carry. Carta fits GPs who already run cap tables there. Allocations publishes the clearest flat rate card. Play Money is the fully transparent option, capping fees at $1,500 per investor with a $500 minimum and nothing charged to deal leads or founders.

A special purpose vehicle, or SPV, is a single-deal legal entity that pools money from several investors into one line on a startup's cap table. The best platform is the one where your round actually closes, so this comparison ranks each on whether a deal can happen there, whether the round fills, and what an angel can know about their cost before committing. It names the founder or CEO behind each platform and covers where Assure's former customers landed after that platform shut down. For the investor-side view, see our comparison of angel investing platforms.

Disclosure

Play Money is on this list. Cheryl Kellond is the founder. Play Money is placed by its actual position and fit, best for founders and deal leads amplifying deals to friends-and-family and platform-sourced angels, and not positioned as the pick for $1M+ institutional syndicate raises where AngelList or Sydecar win. This post is educational, not investment advice.

Does the round actually close?

What decides an SPV is whether the round fills. About 30% of the investors a founder invites need a nudge, an education touch, or a support check-in before they commit. Play Money does that work, and tracks it as first-party data that SPV administrators do not collect. An administrator files the paperwork and waits for wires. The follow-up that turns an interested contact into a committed check is what moves a raise from half-full to closed.

Play Money's own network is added on top of the people a lead already knows. Over the past two years, sharing a deal to the full platform network has typically doubled what the lead raised from their own contacts. That reach is the difference between a round that stalls at friends-and-family and one that fills, which is why closing power sits at the top of the rubric below.

Who is this SPV platform list for?

This comparison is written for the people who actually set up and join SPVs:

• Syndicate leads running deals for a recurring group of angels.
• Founders raising a friends-and-family round who want one clean entity on the cap table.
• Angels joining a deal who want to know exactly what they pay before committing.

It is not written for institutional VC funds, which use full fund administration rather than deal-by-deal SPVs, or for single-check angels investing directly, who need no SPV at all. If you are still deciding whether to lead or join, start with how to start angel investing, then size your checks with our angel investing portfolio strategy guide.

How did I rank these SPV platforms?

I have moved deals across four SPV platforms as a working syndicate lead. Qualifying for this list is a low bar: a platform has to actively serve US SPVs in 2026, publish its pricing or a transparent quoted range, run SEC-registered fund administration that is custody-rule compliant, carry at least two years of operating history or successor status, and not be a white-label shell of another administrator's back end. All five here clear it.

Qualifying is only the floor. What separates these platforms is where each one lands on six axes, in priority order:

• Minimum viable raise. Can a deal happen on the platform at all, or does a raise this size fall below the floor.
• Does the round close. How much investor support and LP reach the platform brings to help the round fill.
• Cost knowability at commit. Can an angel see their exact number before deciding, or only after the investor count is final.
• Who bears the cost. Whether the lead, the angel, or the raise itself absorbs the fee.
• Curation. Whether deals are vetted before they reach investors.
• Admin quality and regulatory standing. Clean filings, K-1s, and custody compliance.

No platform wins every axis. AngelList owns LP reach through Meridian. Sydecar owns predictability at scale with its flat cap. Allocations owns published pricing and a clean migration path. Carta owns workflow consolidation for leads already running cap tables there. Play Money owns minimum viable raise, cost knowability, and zero cost to the lead.

The five platforms on the rubric

Each platform below is scored on the rubric, not just its price. Fee figures are verified July 2026 from each platform's public pricing page, and from Play Money's published fee schedule on letsplaymoney.com. Carta is sales-quoted and has no public SPV rate card at time of writing.

• AngelList. Wins on closing power for larger rounds through Meridian, its own LP pool. Minimum viable raise is high, about $80K standard. An angel's cost is knowable only after the LP count settles, and the lead fronts setup. Best when reach matters more than a low floor.
• Sydecar. Wins on predictability at scale. A flat cap and no platform carry make the cost knowable for large raises. The floor makes small rounds expensive per dollar, and the lead typically passes setup through to angels.
• Carta. Wins on workflow consolidation for GPs already running cap tables there. Pricing is sales-quoted, so cost is not knowable at commit. Best fit is an existing Carta customer rather than a first-time lead.
• Allocations. Wins on published pricing and a clean migration path. The flat rate card is knowable up front, and it is steep on small rounds. No platform carry.
• Play Money. Wins on minimum viable raise, cost knowability, and zero cost to the lead. A $500 per-investor minimum lets small rounds happen at all. Every angel sees the exact 10% fee, capped at $1,500, before committing. Founders and deal leads pay nothing. Carry only on platform-sourced LPs.

1. AngelList: the incumbent with the widest LP network

• Best for: established syndicates with a repeat LP base and $80K+ standard raises.
• Minimum: no per-LP minimum. $80K standard raise, $50K follow-on.
• Fees: $8K setup plus $2K state filing plus $2K/yr admin, capped at 10% of the raise. 5% platform carry on Meridian-sourced LPs, 0% on GP-sourced. Add-ons: blocker entity $1K to $12K, crypto +$2K, 3(c)(7) parallel fund +$12K, non-US +$1K.

Meridian, AngelList's own LP pool, is the real draw. It can materially expand a syndicate's reach, but only if you accept the 5% carry on those LPs. LPs you bring yourself pay AngelList no carry. CEO Avlok Kohli, who took over from Naval Ravikant in 2019, has steered the platform toward institutional syndicates. Source: AngelList fee schedule.

• Watch-outs: the $10K+ absolute setup cost is meaningful drag on raises under $200K. The 10% cap protects small raises in percentage terms, but $10K in real dollars is high next to Sydecar or Play Money.

Verdict: the widest LP network in the market, with per-SPV costs that add up on smaller raises.

2. Sydecar: the flat-fee, no-carry alternative

• Best for: mid-size deals between roughly $225K and $625K, where 2% lands between the floor and the ceiling.
• Minimum: none stated.
• Fees: 2% of capital raised, floor $4,500 and ceiling $12,500, plus $2K regulatory, total cap $14,500. No platform carry. Surcharges: +$1K non-US, +$2,500 pass-through entities, +$3K layered SPVs.

Zero carry means the GP keeps all upside minus admin. The published $14,500 cap makes Sydecar the predictable pick for large raises. Co-founders Nik Talreja and Suraj Rajwani published a Leonis.VC migration case study showing the platform scaling to more than 750 investors on a single vehicle. Source: Sydecar pricing.

• Watch-outs: Sydecar's cost is a flat $4,500 base plus Blue Sky and other transactional fees, so on small and mid-size rounds raise size barely moves it, and the smallest rounds pay the most per dollar. Surcharges stack quickly on non-US or layered deals.

Verdict: the cleanest flat-fee model, with surcharges that apply for non-US or layered structures.

3. Carta: the Assure-successor with negotiated pricing

• Best for: GPs who migrated from Assure and want SPV admin in the same platform as their cap tables.
• Minimum: sales-quoted, none published.
• Fees: roughly $1,500 formation plus custom administration, sales-quoted. No public SPV rate card at time of writing.

Carta absorbed a chunk of Assure's book after the November 2022 shutdown. For leads already using Carta for cap-table management, consolidating SPV admin into one platform removes a vendor. CEO Henry Ward has kept the SPV product running somewhat separately from cap tables. Pricing is referenced in Allocations' Carta comparison, since Carta's own SPV pricing is not public.

• Watch-outs: opaque pricing is the biggest flag, and every quote is custom. Not the cheapest in any raise-size band, and post-Assure integration has had reported hiccups.

Verdict: strong for workflow consolidation, weak on price transparency.

4. Allocations: the transparent published-price platform

• Best for: leads running many SPVs who want published flat pricing and no negotiation.
• Minimum: none stated.
• Fees: $9,950 Standard, $19,500 Premium, $19,500/yr Fund, and $1,950/yr for migrations from other platforms. Five years of ongoing admin is included in setup. No platform carry.

Allocations is the only platform here with a fully published rate card that includes migration pricing. Bundling five years of admin into the setup fee is competitive for long-hold structures. CEO Kingsley Advani has made speed of setup the platform's wedge. Source: Allocations fees.

• Watch-outs: $9,950 flat is expensive for small raises. A $50K SPV pays 20%. Allocations also self-promotes heavily across content marketing, and three of the top five Google results for "best SPV platforms" are Allocations-owned pages that rank Allocations first. Read their comparisons with that in mind.

Verdict: the most transparent published pricing, paired with heavy self-promotion in its own content.

5. Play Money: fully transparent fees at a fraction of a fund's cost

• Best for: founders raising friends-and-family, deal leads amplifying to platform-sourced angels, and investors who want to know exactly what they pay on every deal.
• Minimum: $500 per investor, or founder-set for friends-and-family rounds.
• Fees: 10% of each investment, capped at $1,500 per investor. No management fee and no back-end true-ups. Nothing charged to deal leads or founders. Platform carry only on platform-sourced LPs. No hard minimum raise. The fee and minimum both come from Play Money's published pricing.

The wedge is transparency: every angel sees the exact fee before committing, in one line. Play Money's data shows the average check on the platform is $3,600, so a typical 10% fee comes to about $360, well under the $1,500 per-investor cap. At that cap, the all-in cost on a normal angel check runs a fraction of what the same dollars would lose to a traditional 2 and 20 fund's fee drag, documented by Value Add VC. The $500 minimum is the lowest on this list, which opens the door to friends-and-family rounds and to angels who cannot clear the $10K minimums elsewhere. For a realistic first-portfolio plan at that check size, see how to start angel investing with $10,000. SPVs are one of the vehicles covered in our deal mechanics guide, alongside SAFEs and priced rounds.

• Watch-outs: the newest platform here, with a smaller LP network than AngelList's Meridian pool, and not positioned for $1M+ institutional syndicate raises where AngelList's reach or Sydecar's flat cap wins. Cheryl Kellond is the founder, and this list is disclosed above.

Verdict: fully transparent fees at a fraction of a fund's cost. Newest platform, smaller LP network than AngelList.

What does a deal lead earn on Play Money?

Deal-lead economics rarely get spelled out, so here they are in plain terms. You set the carry, typically 20%, the same as any syndicate. On every investor you bring to the deal, you keep all of it. Play Money retains 5 of those 20 points only on investors its own network brings in, and nothing on the ones you brought.

You also receive 20% of the platform fee, which works out to roughly 2% of every check, paid once at close. On a $250K raise that is about $5,000.

Compare the cash. On AngelList a lead fronts about $12,000 in setup and keeps 20 points on Meridian LPs. On Play Money you pay nothing up front, receive that roughly 2% of every check, and give up 5 points only on platform-sourced investors. On the same $250K raise, that is about $5,000 received against about $12,000 you never had to put in.

How much do SPV fees actually cost?

SPV fees rarely arrive as a single line item. They compound against your return. Carry is the share of investors' profits the platform or organizer keeps on top of admin fees, and a traditional "2 and 20" fund stacks a 2% annual management fee on top of 20% carry. According to Value Add VC's SPV calculator data, analyzed by Play Money across three raise sizes, the all-in drag runs about 16% of returns for a bare-bones single-layer SPV and climbs to 31% for a layered fund-of-SPVs with stacked 2 and 20 fees, measured at a 5x exit. That range is the number to hold in your head while reading any fee schedule, because a single-deal SPV skips the annual management drag and the real contest becomes setup and admin cost per raise, plus any platform carry charged on sourced investors.

A $9,950 flat setup fee sounds fixed until you divide it by a $50K raise and watch 20% vanish before the deal returns a dollar. The same setup fee on a $500K raise is under 2%. Fee drag is a function of raise size, not just the sticker price. The math below turns each platform's published schedule into a per-raise cost so you can compare like for like.

Angels pay these fees out of their own pockets, which makes the schedule theirs to read line by line before committing. Cheryl Kellond, founder of Play Money, wrote about this angel-first mindset in a weekly letter, Write Checks First. Build the Thesis Later.

Angels are not small VCs. It's our money, our rules.

What does an angel pay out of pocket at $50K and $150K?

Cost is one axis of the rubric, and it matters most on smaller rounds. Above roughly $250K this is the wrong product: use AngelList for LP reach or Sydecar for a flat cap. Below that, here is the cash an angel pays on their own check, since leads on the other platforms typically pass setup through to investors pro rata.

On Play Money the number is knowable at commit: 10% of the check, capped at $1,500, with the lead's compensation already inside it. Play Money charges the lead nothing, so the lead has nothing to recoup, which means no pass-through and no reason to add a management fee. The lead is paid from the 10% the angel already agreed to. On the other platforms the lead is out $6,500 to $12,000 before a dollar closes, which is why the pass-through exists. There, an angel's cost is setup pro rata, which depends on how many investors show up after them, plus any management fee the lead can add. On Play Money, 10% is a ceiling. On the others, the equivalent is a floor.

Here is the setup the other platforms bill against the raise, which their leads typically split across investors pro rata. At $50K: Sydecar is $6,500 (its $4,500 floor plus $2,000 regulatory), Allocations is $9,950 flat, AngelList's roughly $80K platform minimum means a $50K round cannot run there at all, and Carta quotes custom. At $150K: Sydecar is $6,500 (2% of $150K falls below the floor, so the floor plus regulatory applies), Allocations is $9,950 flat, AngelList is about $10,000 in setup, and Carta is still custom. Divide any of those by the final investor count to get an angel's share, a number that is not fixed until the round fills.

On Play Money the same angel writing a $5K check pays $500, capped at $1,500 no matter how large the check, and sees that number before committing, while the round is still open.

Where Play Money is not the right choice

The honest limit is investor count. When a lead charges no management fee and the round draws a large crowd, the per-angel cash cost is lower elsewhere, because the fixed setup gets split more ways. On a $250K raise with 50 investors, a $5K check runs about $140 on Sydecar against $500 on Play Money. For $1M-plus institutional syndicate raises, AngelList's Meridian reach or Sydecar's flat cap wins outright. Play Money earns its place on the small and mid-size rounds where many small, disciplined checks close the deal, and where a lead wants zero cost and an angel wants a number they can see. If you are weighing a one-off SPV against a rolling vehicle for a recurring group, our guide to SPV vs RUV lays out the tradeoffs before you file.

Best for GPs with existing Carta cap-table relationships

Carta wins on workflow consolidation, not price. If your portfolio companies already sit on Carta, adding SPV admin removes one vendor from your stack. The sales-quoted pricing is the tradeoff you accept for that convenience.

Where did Assure's GPs go after the shutdown?

Assure was the largest SPV administrator by volume, by an estimated 10x, per Landon Ainge of Assemble VC. It announced its shutdown on November 22, 2022, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and wound down by December 30, 2022. Migration cost organizers $5,000 or more per SPV, per TechCrunch's coverage, which quoted Hustle Fund co-founder Elizabeth Yin on the disruption.

Carta acquired some of the assets. Sydecar published a migration case study showing a clean transition. Allocations positioned itself explicitly on migration pricing at $1,950/yr. If you were on Assure and still have not moved, your fastest path is a Sydecar or Allocations migration ticket. Where you should land depends on your priority:

• Already on Carta for cap tables? Migrate SPV admin to Carta for consolidation.
• Want the lowest all-in cost on future SPVs? Allocations, with published $1,950/yr migration pricing.
• Want zero carry going forward? Sydecar.
• Need Meridian LP reach? AngelList.
• Raising small friends-and-family rounds? Play Money.

Which platforms did we exclude, and why?

• Archstone: thin public data and inconsistent published fees.
• Vauban/CapDesk: UK-focused, and the US SPV product is not primary.
• Republic Fund Admin: deprecated in 2024.
• StartEngine SPV: crowdfunding-adjacent, a different regulatory model.
• Odin: UK-primary.

We ranked only platforms actively serving US SPVs with published or transparent pricing in July 2026.

Written by Cheryl Kellond, founder of Play Money. Serial founder, MIT Sloan MBA, active angel investor and syndicate lead. Not tax advice, consult a qualified tax professional for your specific situation. Last updated: July 2026.