Qualified purchaser is the rung above accredited investor, and the bar is much higher: roughly $5 million in investments for an individual (or $25 million for an entity investing on others' behalf). Note that the test is investments, not net worth, so your home and the value of a business you operate don't count toward it. There's also an intermediate tier worth knowing — the "qualified client" (about $2.2 million in net worth, or $1.1 million managed with the adviser) — which is the threshold that lets a fund manager charge performance fees or carry.
The distinction matters because of fund structure, not individual deals. A fund relying on the 3(c)(1) exemption can take up to 100 investors (or 250 for smaller qualifying venture funds) and only needs them to be accredited. A fund using 3(c)(7) faces no statutory cap on investor count — though a separate rule effectively limits it to around 2,000 holders — but every single investor must be a qualified purchaser. Larger and more selective venture funds often choose 3(c)(7) for that headroom, which is why the bigger or more established the fund, the more likely you'll need qualified purchaser status to get in. For most individual angels writing checks into SAFEs and syndicate SPVs, accredited status is all you'll ever need; qualified purchaser comes up mainly once you start investing in sizable funds.