Crowd Street Wins Seven FCS Portfolio Awards, Including Gold for Corporate Website

This recognition places Crowd Street’s digital brand experience among leading financial institutions while underscoring the company’s push to make professionally managed private market funds more accessible to investors.

NEW YORK, May 20, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Crowd Street, a private market investment platform providing accredited investors with access to professionally managed private market investment opportunities, today announced it has earned seven honors at the 32nd Annual Financial Communications Society (FCS) Portfolio Awards, including Gold for its corporate website.

The FCS Portfolio Awards recognize excellence in financial services marketing and communications, honoring work across branding, digital experience, advertising, public relations, sponsorships, and integrated campaigns. This year’s program drew more than 600 entries from a record 142 companies, with winners announced at the annual black-tie gala at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York City before a sold-out audience of more than 600 financial marketing, communications, and media professionals from 140 companies.

Crowd Street received seven awards:

Gold

Financial Institution: Corporate Image Website — CrowdStreet.com

Financial Institution: Consumer Audio Advertising — “Independently”

Silver

Financial Institution: Consumer Print Campaign — “Possible, Private, Missing”

Bronze

Financial Institution: Corporate Image Logo — Crowd Street Logo

Financial Institution: Business-to-Business Online Video — Manifesto Film

Financial Institution: Corporate Image Sponsorship Marketing — Tournament of Champions

Financial Institution: Consumer Audio Advertising — “Economics of Everyday Things”

Crowd Street’s Gold for Corporate Image Website recognized CrowdStreet.com, recognizing Crowd Street’s digital brand experience in direct proximity with some of the largest and most established financial services firms in the world.

As Kevin Windorf, CEO of the Financial Communications Society, noted in the FCS announcement, “financial marketing has never been more sophisticated or more creative, and the FCS is excited to recognize the best of the best.”

The breadth of Crowd Street’s awarded work reflects the company’s broader focus on making private market investing clearer for accredited investors considering private market opportunities, which include investments in companies and assets that are not traded on public stock exchanges. Historically, many of these strategies were available primarily to institutions, such as endowments, foundations, and pension plans, often through relationships and check sizes that were beyond the reach of many individual investors.

Crowd Street strives to change that model. Through its technology platform, relationships with investment firms, educational content, and back-office processing, Crowd Street enables investors to access professionally managed private market investment opportunities. For years, individual investors seeking access to private market investments often had to rely on wealth managers, financial advisors, or other intermediaries, where options may have been limited, additional fees could be attached, and the experience may have been shaped by factors beyond the individual investor’s choices.

Crowd Street is building a more hands-on, self-directed alternative: a technology-enabled platform with a growing menu of private market investment opportunities for accredited, self-directed investors, designed to rival what investors might find through leading wealth management channels, while giving them more clarity, control, and access at lower minimums. In simple terms, Crowd Street gives investors a more direct way to invest in private market strategies, similar to the experience of public-market platforms that made it easier to invest in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and ETFs.

“This was not a brand refresh. Rather, it is a repositioning of the playing field,” said John Imbriglia, Chief Executive Officer of Crowd Street. “Our first job is to make private markets more understandable and investable. A new entrant to private markets should not have to start by picking a single company, property, or deal. A fund can provide exposure across a professionally managed portfolio of private companies, private credit, real assets, or other strategies. Conceptually, it is familiar to investors who understand mutual funds, but the exposure is different: private markets that were historically reserved for institutions, advisors, and very large checks. That is why our brand work matters. Because the mission is bigger than marketing. We are building the platform for eligible investors who want to participate in the private markets, for example, by gaining access to, where available, private companies, including pre-IPO technology companies, by investing in a professionally managed private equity fund, with the flexibility to do so independently and on their own timeline.”

While Wall Street remains the place most investors associate with investing in public companies, Crowd Street is becoming the platform through which investors can access professionally managed private market investment opportunities, including funds that may invest across real assets or private companies, with either equity or debt structures. The significance is not cosmetic. It is structural: Crowd Street is using technology to help reduce the friction, opacity, and exclusivity that have historically defined private market access.

The recognized work, including the company’s Manifesto Film, the Gold-winning website, the Tournament of Champions sponsorship, audio campaigns, and new visual identity that kicked off in 2025, supports a single commercial purpose: to help investors understand private markets and see Crowd Street as a credible, accessible, and modern way to participate.

“This recognition matters because Crowd Street was placed in the same arena as some of the largest names in financial services, not in a startup category or a real estate category,” said Rodes Ponzer, Chief Marketing Officer of Crowd Street. “Winning Gold for our corporate website in a category that included entries from Morgan Stanley and Bank of America is a signal that the category of financial institutions is changing. Private markets have historically been difficult to access, difficult to explain, and difficult for individuals to navigate without institutional relationships or very large check sizes. Our job is to make that experience clear, credible, and accessible enough for accredited individual investors to understand. That is the real work of category disruption.”

The awarded entries were developed in collaboration with a unique blending of several creative, insight, and media agency partners, including: Peter Moore Smith, Now What, misterwolf, Dear Future, Harvey Design, Mai La Thai, Nomad Editing Co, Literate AI, and Manifest.

This latest recognition follows several recent Crowd Street milestones, including the launch of integrated self-directed IRA capabilities with Equity Trust and the appointment of Dave Kasouf as Chief Private Markets Officer. Crowd Street has also continued to expand its investor education efforts with the educational seminar series in collaboration with investment consulting firm Callan, providing investors with deeper insight into private markets as they navigate the expanding landscape.

As part of its commitment to investor education, Crowd Street has published resources on private market investing, including a Guide to Private Equity Investing and a Guide to Private Credit Investing. These materials are designed to help investors understand how private market strategies work, how they differ from public markets, and what accredited investors should consider when evaluating opportunities.

For more information, visit https://crowdstreet.com/.

About Crowd Street
Crowd Street provides accredited investors access to self-directed private market investments. The platform offers a marketplace of alternative investment opportunities that have historically primarily been available to a small group of people. In addition to providing advanced tools, research, and insights to help investors confidently explore these available opportunities, Crowd Street is also building a member experience rooted in trust and experience – further bridging the gap between investment opportunities and true financial wealth.

Media Contact
LaunchSquad
crowdstreet@launchsquad.com

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