Scientologist Grant Cardone tells you to watch his social media videos. We tell you to read his SEC filings. The difference between the two is the difference between a sales pitch and a set of books filed under penalty of federal law.
The most recent Form 1-SA filed with the SEC by Cardone Non Accredited Fund, LLC — for the semi-annual period ended June 30, 2025 — is now public. It is Commission File No. 024-12283. We have reviewed it in detail.
This fund exists for one purpose: to take money from non-accredited investors — the least sophisticated investors under federal securities law — through a Regulation A offering. Minimum investment: $5,000 per investor. $100 per unit. The target raise is $74,975,000.
Here is what the filing actually says.
The Headline Numbers
Fundraising has collapsed. In the first half of 2025, the fund issued only 19,787 new units — raising just $1,978,700. Compare that to all of 2024, when the fund raised approximately $46 million. The pipeline hasn’t just slowed. It has functionally stopped.
The filing itself admits as much. Under “Liquidity and Capital Resources,” the company states: “The Company’s plan over the next twelve months is to requalify its Regulation A offering so that it may begin raising money again.”
Read that sentence carefully. The Reg A offering needs to be requalified with the SEC before Cardone can raise any new money from non-accredited investors in this fund. The pipeline is shut.
The fund is losing money. Net loss of $1,296,716 for H1 2025. This compares with net income of $189,346 for H1 2024. The fund swung from a $154,688 gain on its property investments in H1 2024 to a $1,001,900 loss in H1 2025.
Cash is evaporating. Cash dropped from $2,200,398 at year-end 2024 to $797,289 as of June 30, 2025 — a 64% decline in six months. This fund has less than $800,000 in cash.
The underlying properties are hemorrhaging. The three South Florida multifamily properties — identified in the filing as Manor, Jacaranda, and Edge, all located in Fort Lauderdale — generated combined revenue of $19 million against operating expenses of $27.6 million. That is a combined operating loss of $8.6 million in six months.
All three properties are losing money. Jacaranda is the worst: $6.78 million in revenue versus $10.91 million in operating expenses.
Operating expenses are running at 145% of revenue across the portfolio. For every dollar these properties bring in, they spend a dollar and forty-five cents.
The Self-Dealing — Documented in the Company’s Own Filing
This is where it gets instructive. Everything we have been writing about for years on this blog is confirmed — not by us, not by the class action complaints, not by the Ninth Circuit — but by Grant Cardone’s own SEC filing. In his own words, filed under penalty of federal law:
1. The “pre-fund” loan. Grant Cardone loaned the fund $4,586,518 at 3.5% interest to “pre-fund” property acquisitions. This loan was repaid with investor money during 2024. The filing states accrued interest of $86,633 is still owed to Cardone. For future purchases, the filing discloses that Cardone will continue to “pre-fund” acquisitions by loaning the fund money at “Market Rates” — with principal and interest due on demand.
This is the self-dealing mechanism we first documented in 2020 when the Susman Godfrey class action was filed. Cardone buys properties, loans the money to his own fund, the fund repays him with investor capital, and he collects interest on top. The fund’s own SEC filing confirms the practice.
2. The 1% acquisition fee. Total acquisition fees paid to the Manager (Cardone Capital LLC) or its “designated affiliate”: $3,929,500 — all of which has already been paid. The fund’s proportional share of these fees: $448,903, which is included in the cost basis of the properties.
Grant Cardone collected nearly $4 million in acquisition fees for selling properties to his own captive fund.
3. The 1% annual asset management fee. The fund incurred $239,880 in asset management fees in H1 2025 alone — a 745% increase over the $28,378 incurred in H1 2024. As of June 30, 2025, $451,471 in unpaid management fees is owed to Cardone’s affiliates.
The fund is losing money and bleeding cash, but the management fees keep accruing. Grant Cardone owns the management company and gets paid whether his investors make money or not.
4. Grant Cardone’s personal investment: $25,000. The filing states that since formation, Grant Cardone has invested $25,000 in the fund — twenty-five Class A Units at $100 each, “on the same terms and conditions as the Class A Units being sold in our Regulation A offering.”
On a fund targeting $75 million from non-accredited investors, the manager put in 0.033% of the target raise. He is asking the “everyday investor” to put in a minimum of $5,000 while he has $25,000 of his own money at risk.
5. The Class B Units — the real prize. Grant Cardone received 1,000 Class B Units on January 31, 2022 as “founder’s interests for no consideration.” He paid nothing for them.
These Class B Units receive 20% of all operating cash distributions and 20% of capital transaction distributions (after investors receive a return of their contributed capital and a catch-up provision). The Class B Units are the only voting units. Class A investors — the non-accredited public — have no voting rights on any matters.
The filing shows a line item in the Statement of Changes in Members’ Equity called “Hypothetical Carried Interest to Manager” in the amount of $517,533 allocated to the Class B Units in H1 2025.
Grant Cardone’s Class B Units went from a book value of $0 to $517,533 — while the fund posted a net loss of $1,296,716 and Class A investors lost money.
Distributions While Losing Money
The fund distributed $1,184,829 to unitholders in H1 2025 while posting a net loss of $1,296,716.
Accumulated distributions to date: $2,070,134.
Accumulated deficit: $2,908,358.
The fund has distributed more money than it has ever earned. Distributions are being paid out of investor capital, not investment returns. This is the same pattern we documented in the Cardone REIT 1 LLC filing in October 2023 and the same pattern alleged in the class action lawsuits.
When a fund distributes money to investors while running at a loss, the money has to come from somewhere. It comes from the investors’ own contributed capital. The investors are, in effect, getting their own money back and being told it is a return on their investment.
When cumulative distributions exceed cumulative earnings, the excess is mathematically coming from contributed capital, not returns. This is documented in the fund’s own Statement of Changes in Members’ Equity.
Investors Are Leaving
The filing shows:
$462,000 in divestitures payable — investors redeeming their interests — paid out in H1 2025.
$192,825 in offering proceeds returned to investors.
Investors are cashing out of a fund that can’t raise new money, is losing money on operations, and has $797,289 in cash remaining.
The Ownership Slices
Here is what non-accredited investors actually own through this fund. The Cardone Non Accredited Fund holds tiny minority stakes in the underlying properties:
Manor: 11.22% ownership interest
Jacaranda: 8.13% ownership interest
Edge: 16.54% ownership interest
The rest of each property is owned by the Cardone Equity Funds — the accredited investor vehicles — and by Grant Cardone personally, who typically holds 1% to 2.5% of each LLC.
The non-accredited investors — the least sophisticated, lowest-minimum participants, the people Cardone targets with Instagram videos and YouTube promises — get the smallest slices of properties that are all losing money.
What the Filing Discloses About the Properties
The condensed financial statements for the three underlying property LLCs tell their own story:
Combined total assets: $368.8 million
Combined total liabilities: $5.3 million
Combined members’ equity: $363.4 million
The low debt-to-asset ratio suggests these particular properties may have been acquired largely with equity rather than leverage. This would be consistent with the filing’s statement that the fund is prepared to “acquire assets on an all-cash basis” if favorable financing is unavailable.
But the operating losses are enormous regardless of the capital structure. $8.6 million in operating losses on $19 million in revenue in six months. These properties are not cash flowing. They are cash burning.
The filing attributes part of the loss to “non-cash depreciation and amortization expenses” totaling $2,165,619 for H1 2025. Even backing out the non-cash charges, the underlying operations are deeply unprofitable.
“Market Rates” — A Phrase to Watch
The filing’s description of how Cardone will continue to fund future acquisitions deserves close attention. Under “Note Payable,” the filing states:
“For some real estate purchases, Grant Cardone ‘pre-funds’ a portion of the Company’s acquisition by loaning the Company the amount needed to participate in the purchase of the property. These notes are unsecured and bear interest at Market Rates, with principal and interest due on demand.”
“Market Rates” is not a fixed number. It is whatever Grant Cardone says it is when he writes the loan to his own fund. The first pre-fund loan was at 3.5%. We have documented in prior articles that Cardone has charged his other funds 6% interest on pre-fund loans. The filing gives Cardone the discretion to set the rate on future loans to his own captive entity — and to demand repayment at any time.
The Attorney of Record
The filing lists all correspondence to be directed to Jonathan Sabo, Esq. of Dodson Robinette PLLC in Denton, Texas. The email address provided is jonathan@crowdfundinglawyers.net.
Crowdfunding lawyers. That is the law firm handling the SEC filings for a fund that claims $5.1 billion in assets under management across the Cardone Capital platform.
Our Opinion
In our opinion, this SEC filing confirms what we have been reporting since 2020:
Grant Cardone’s business model is designed to minimize his personal financial risk, maximize his fee income, and shift all risk onto his investors — with the least sophisticated investors bearing the heaviest burden.
He invests $25,000 of his own money. He collects nearly $4 million in acquisition fees. He charges management fees that keep accruing whether investors make money or not. He receives 20% of all distributions through Class B Units he obtained for free. He loans money to his own fund and collects interest. And when the properties lose money, the investors absorb the losses while Cardone’s fee income and carried interest continue to build.
This is all disclosed in the SEC filing. It is legal. The question is whether it is what the “everyday investors” who watch Grant Cardone’s social media videos understand they are signing up for.
We recommend that anyone considering an investment in any Cardone Capital fund — particularly the non-accredited funds targeted at small investors — read this Form 1-SA before watching another Instagram video. The SEC filing is posted below.
The numbers do not lie. Grant Cardone’s social media videos are another matter entirely.
In our next article, we will examine how Grant Cardone’s pivot to Bitcoin-real estate hybrid funds — and his need to buy distressed properties out of Blackstone’s bankruptcy — connects to the debt wall we predicted in 2020. The balloon payments are arriving on schedule. Stay tuned.
Categories: Grant Cardone: Fantasy vs. Reality
Would I be incorrect in saying his years long Ponzi schemes are starting to crash down around his ears and is now starting to reap the “benefits” of his unbridled greed?
Jeff, several things struck me about this post. The last two are by far the most important:
1. I’d argue that the biggest issue in Cardone’s self dealing is likely to be the mandatory takeout provisions that we saw when I reviewed the offering memos for a couple of Cardone’s accredited partnerships with you a couple of years ago. I’d have to believe those same provisions are in this partnership as well. Cardone has the option to compel a sale of the building at the end of the partnership to him at the end of the partnership life at the then fair market value. This means that if the building is likely to continue appreciating after the end of the partnership, Cardone can grab all that appreciation potential for himself and there’s nothing that the limiteds can do.
2. I’m not a residential real estate guy but from everything I read, the Florida rental and condo markets are seriously screwed for many years to come due to insurance risk, under-reserved buildings and all sorts of other stuff. I can’t imagine starting a new partnership to invest in this market. You’d have to be awfully clueless to think this is a good idea at this point. There are so many new construction “5-over-1” buildings coming on line in major markets at this point that older buildings (even only 5-10 years old) are going to be hard pressed to retain value.
3. Most importantly, I suspect that Cardone’s fundraising is being stalled by virtue of two new competitors entering the market of “scams to soak up the disposable income of gullible 20-something males.” Cardone’s pitch is to sell you seminars that make you feel like you could become a “player.” Then you invest $5,000 or $10,000 in one of his funds and sit back and wait a handful of years for the $$$ to (allegedly) roll in. The problem is that in Cardone’s model, the only way to feel special until you cash out is to go to more of his seminars, where he spouts the same old hackneyed advice over and over. But the new competitors — crypto and prediction markets — give you a hit of feeling special as often as you execute a trade or buy a prediction outcome.
You get the same emotional benefit as a Cardone investment — feeling like you’re a player and that you’re smarter than everyone else — but with actual liquidity (in the unlikely event that you win) and you can show people via the app on your phone how much money you made in your last trade. In other words, the prestige value of seeming to be a successful crypto-bro or prediction market bro is much higher than being a real estate bro via Cardone.
4. Disposable income in this country is tanking. Residential rents are finally starting to roll back after seeing price increases way above the rate of inflation. Food price inflation is hurting almost everyone. I have seen data that says only about 10% of the population aren’t feeling pinched in the last two years, and most of those are older people with high incomes and low mortgage payments. People in the income brackets where the non-accredited fund targets (network ops bro’s working for small regional banks in the South) don’t have $5,000 in disposable income any more. You can bet as much or as little as you want on a prediction market. The disposable income issue is not likely to turn around any time soon without major tax policy changes. So the pool of people that are going to think about whether to choose between investing in real estate or repairing the car they need to go to work is low and getting lower.
So he gets his cake and eats it too, but tells everyone else “let them eat cake”.