The awareness about the need to save throughout life and, especially, the care in the search for profitability alternatives, considering the corresponding risks, have been a great watershed in the change of attitude of the Brazilian population.

We are still far from being a country in which most of the population clearly understands the topic "financial education". This fact is rooted in the economic scenarios experienced by Brazil in the last decades.

In the more distant past, uncontrolled inflation generated tremendous unpredictability, making it difficult to draw long-term investment scenarios. More recently, we have lived with extremely high interest rates that discouraged any kind of investor from analyzing alternative products.

However, this perception of ours has been changing, mainly as a function:

(i) easy access to content about financial education, ways to save money and invest;

(ii) the fall in interest rates, which forces the investor to better study the existing possibilities; and

(iii) the evolution of our society and markets, with the facilitation of new product and platform launches, on the one hand, and the higher level of demand by the general public, on the other, with the search for more service quality and product options, to the detriment of valuing mere security and "tradition" in their investments.

These issues contributed to another very relevant factor: creative entrepreneurs started to develop new financing solutions, including the use of the financial and capital markets.

Thus, the so-called "alternative investments" have been appearing more and more strongly in Brazil. But what are they exactly?

We can, for better understanding, use the definition adopted by the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst Association (CAIA), a global organization focused on alternative investments and which divides them into four major groups:

(i) Real Assets: real estate assets, infrastructure, natural resources, commodities and intangible assets.

(ii) Hedge Funds: entities with little regulation and supervision (in the US market), which seek investments in derivatives, leverage, short positions in securities, and other strategies.

(iii) Private Equity: venture capital investments, leveraged buyouts, mezzanine debt and debt for distressed assets.

(iv) Structured Products: risk securitization financial products and specific derivatives.

Some of the investment theses above are already well known in the Brazilian market, such as investments in real estate (through FII and CRI) and private equity (through FIP). But what about the rest?

It is in this remainder that cutting edge opportunities have emerged, some of them already quite successful, among which we can mention the investment theses in:

(i) solar energy;
(ii) litigation finance;
(iii) investments linked to agro-industrial production (through CRAs and CPRs); and
(iv) condo-hotel.

(i) natural resources;
(ii) crypto- and tokenization;
(iii) medical use of cannabis;
(iv) investments in wines and works of art;
(v) investments linked to agro-industrial production (through CRAs and CPRs); and
(vi) investments linked to the harvesting of agricultural assets and animal fattening.

While the investment theses above already have their own products, such as CRA, CRI, FII, FIPs, etc., others will be structured in innovative ways, still in full development. It is a fantastic time to use technical knowledge and creativity to develop new solutions.

Regardless of the investment thesis that the specialist will seek to implement, or the one that the investor will analyze, there is always the same question: what is the best structure for this investment? For those on the other side of the position, the question is: can I, as an investor, invest in this asset?

The question is apparently simple, but very broad. The rules are so many and so disparate that the answer will depend on many factors, including: what is the entrepreneur's interest, what type of capital structure is he seeking, what taxation is appropriate for the project, what restrictions and limits can be included that will not hinder the project, who is the target audience he wants to reach, what is the business volume, what is the future growth strategy, etc.?

The truth is that the answer can also be simple and as open as the question: FIAGRO, FII, FIPs, Equity Venture Capital, Debt Venture Capital, Crowdfunding, Infra FIDCS, Green Bonds, Condo-Hotel, CICS, CRI, CRA, CPR, CAV, Cryptoactive/Tokenization, Distressed Assets, Litigation Finance.