Combined (one adviser + MediaCo)

Founders own HoldCo / ManagementCo (brand, team, IP), which owns:

• The Registered Investment Adviser — one Form ADV, one CCO, Sean as CIO across both engines — which advises both separate accounts for wealth clients (advisory fee on AUM) and the SPVs and funds (3(c)(1) / 3(c)(7); deal-by-deal and thematic; carry flows to GP entities).
• MediaCo / MarketplaceCo — creator media, events, affiliate revenue — held outside the adviser.

The funnel (an SPV participant becomes a wealth client) is an internal data flow inside one entity. One cap table, possibly with different equity classes. This is not "combined but no deals" — the deal engine is present; what makes it Combined is that a single adviser runs both sides and Sean sits on both.

Leanest of the deal-carrying structures. Sean covers investment for both engines, so the second senior investment hire (the SPV-side investment principal / heavyweight IC chair) is deferred entirely — this single seat is the biggest team-cost difference between Combined and Separated. Add a fractional CCO from day one (the RIA-plus-SPV conflict needs compliance ownership independent of the people on both sides of the allocation — Sean cannot be CIO, adviser to the SPVs, and the CCO who polices the conflict), one deal-operations owner for the SPV lifecycle, wealth advisors/IARs as AUM grows, and Edgar-model specialist sourcers as variable cost. Everyone is an employee or principal of one company.

Lowest of the deal-carrying paths. One registration (state RIA below the threshold, SEC above), one compliance build, one tech build serving both engines, one G&A line, and no duplicate investment principal. Order of magnitude for the seed:

The band covers registration, the fractional CCO, principal comp, the first advisor, the tech build, D&O/E&O, and securities counsel. A single 24-month runway funds one company.

One round into the HoldCo. Investors buy the whole flywheel: a creator-fed wealth platform with a proprietary alternatives engine. Simpler process, one negotiation, one cap table. The cost is a blended-valuation problem — you are asking an investor to underwrite a hybrid that is part recurring-revenue wealth platform (high multiple, clean comps) and part deal sponsor (lumpy carry, lower multiple, more risk surface). The RIA's clean recurring revenue gets muddied by the SPV's lumpiness, and most investors comp to the messier half. You can fight this by making the RIA the narrative and the SPV the acquisition channel, but you are still selling one blended instrument.

Valued as one blended entity, most likely on a revenue multiple weighted toward the recurring AUM line but discounted for the SPV complexity and securities-liability surface. A strategic acquirer who wants the integrated flywheel might pay up; a financial buyer will discount the blend. This is the mirror of Separated, where the market pays the full clean RIA multiple (~2–4% of AUM, 6–12x EBITDA) precisely because it is not muddied by the SPV.

Simplest to run day-to-day (one company, one compliance program, one set of books). Least flexible to tune: one cap table means every advisor hire dilutes the creator economics and vice versa, one regulatory regime applies to both engines, and the conflict is at its most concentrated because the same person (Sean) sits on both sides of the allocation. Conflict management — disclosure, an independent CCO, a written allocation policy, fee offset so clients are not double-charged — is heavy and constant.

Lowest. To sell, a buyer takes the whole thing, and RIA aggregators — the deepest, most liquid buyer pool — do not want the SPV's contingent securities liabilities bolted on. You can carve the RIA out and sell it later, but that becomes a project done under time pressure with a buyer already at the table. Building the entity carve-ready from day one (separable books, separate cap-table pools, the funnel and brand papered as conveyable HoldCo assets) is the hedge the synthesis recommends.