What are the selection criteria for which companies get Ratings and Analyst Reports?

Here is a quick synopsis of which raises get rated (1-5 star rating with commentary), and also which ones get a deeper-dive analyst report: Nearly 100% of Reg CF and Reg A deals get rated (1-5 stars, with commentary). There are a few exceptions to this, which are for raises that don’t really fit our rating algorithm based on startups, such as video games, films, sports teams, and investment properties. Also, sometimes we aren’t able to get all the information we need about a raise or some of the data is called into question, and so if we aren’t able to get in contact with the founder to confirm, then we might not rate a deal. Lastly, we do not currently rate Regulation D (Reg D) private deals. Basic deal information (terms, company details, etc.) are added within 24 hours of a deal going live on a funding platform We then typically aim to analyze and rate a deal within 5-10 business days of when it launches A smaller subset of deals will also get a deeper-dive analyst report. There are a number of factors that influence whether a deal might get a more in-depth report written, including: Do we think the deal will be successful? e.g. If a deal only raises $5,000 and we know won’t be successful or have much investor interest, we will focus our resources and due diligence on deals that have a higher probability of being successfully funded. Do we think the deal will have significant investor interest, especially among Kingscrowd users? Has the company launched popular funding rounds in the past? Are we able to get a response from the founder? Sometimes we want to write a report but the founder(s) don’t respond, and so we won’t publish a report if the founder doesn’t get back to us on any open questions or concerns. Our Kingscrowd users and investors can help to influence which deals get reports written. We look at how many followers companies have, how many bullish/bearish votes a company has, and other means to gauge investor interest and try to focus our efforts on writing reports that will be of the most interest to our customers.

How does Kingscrowd determine which deals get flagged as "Impact Investing" deals?

Kingscrowd currently allows users to search and filter by “Impact Investing” deals. The criteria that Kingscrowd uses to determine whether a deal has “Impact” or not is: Environmental Impact: Startups with core products or services diminishing the impact of human activity on the environment. These startups are either creating environmentally-friendly products or championing practices that fight against environmental damages. Social impact: Startups with core products or services that address social injustice, inequality, and related challenges. ESG Initiatives (non-impact): startups donating parts of their revenues, products, and/or enhancing green and social initiatives in their companies will not be marked as “Impact” deals. For example, a beer company operating on renewable energy, or a software startup implementing DEI practices and great governance.

How do I get my company featured on Kingscrowd?

If your company is actively raising capital on a major platform like Wefunder, Republic, StartEngine, or Honeycomb, among others, your raise analytics will be automatically added to the Kingscrowd site. We also use SEC filings to add most independent raises. There is no specific action required on your part. Most companies will receive ratings, with just a few exceptions (such as funds and sports teams). If you do not see a rating for your company immediately, it may be because we have not yet collected data. Additionally, we may not rate your raise if we believe that your business model is too far from the ones our algorithm typically analyzes. Please allow at least a week from the time your raise goes live. We appreciate your patience as this process takes time. Additionally, Kingscrowd produces in-depth Analyst Reports on select deals each week based on their investment potential and rating. Our decision to produce reports is internal and not based on founder interest. If your company is not selected for an Analyst Report, it will still receive a rating via our comprehensive, data-driven platform, aside from the exceptions mentioned above.

How do I get into the Kingscrowd newsletter?

Similar to our analyst reports, any features in our newsletter are based on internal decisions. We do not offer paid deal placements, as we work on behalf of investors. We select companies for the newsletter based on customer interest, industry distribution, and ratings.

Do you accept payments from startups in exchange for promotions, features, newsletter placements, recommendations, etc.?

Kingscrowd is an independent ratings and analytics platform. To remain as objective as possible, we never take money from startup companies in exchange for marketing, featuring, promoting, or highlighting a raise in any way. This includes newsletter placements.

Will Kingscrowd Capital consider my company for investment?

We will consider each highly rated company actively raising online capital that aligns with our investment thesis for inclusion in our fund. If we believe your company may be a good fit, we will contact you either directly or through the platform on which you are raising capital. We will conduct an initial due diligence call and communicate our decision within a few weeks. Currently, we do not accept inbound applications for funding.

How do I become a Top Deal?

Top deals serve as investment memos and are reserved for companies that receive an investment from Kingscrowd Capital.

I believe that my company page has erroneous or outdated data. What should I do?

We apologize for any potential errors. We are always striving to improve and welcome feedback. If you notice an error, please reach out to help@kingscrowd.com. Depending on the complexity of the error, we may be able to resolve it via email, or a member of the analyst team may request a phone call.

How can I receive a Founder Profile?

Regarding Founder Profiles, our team will reach out to you directly if we find your story compelling and if your raise meets our quality bar. However, we also accept inbound requests! If you are interested in a Founder Profile, please contact us at help@kingscrowd.com. Please note that depending on demand, the timing of your raise, and our assessment of the investment opportunity, we may not be able to accommodate all requests. The profile process involves an interview call with one of our analysts followed by the completion of a questionnaire.

I submitted my Founder Profile! When will it be published?

We aim to publish Founder Profiles within two weeks of receiving them. That said, the process may take longer depending on the number of other profiles in our queue and other content on our schedule. We publish profiles in the order that we receive them, so the sooner we receive the questionnaire from you, the sooner it can go live. We will make sure that your profile is released well in advance of your close date.

How do I claim my page? What does this do?

If you are the CEO, founder, or employee of a company raising funds online, you are welcome to “claim” your company page on the Kingscrowd site. This helps establish a connection should our team want to reach out for content. To claim the page, scroll to the bottom of the company profile and click “Claim this raise page.” Answer the questions that follow.

Which platform should I choose for my raise?

Not all crowdfunding platforms are identical. At Kingscrowd, we recognize that different platforms suit different company needs, and therefore, we cannot recommend one platform over another. Factors such as deal volume, flow of investors, the type of deals hosted, and social impact considerations should guide your choice of platform based on what best suits your company and your raise. That said, if you would like more data on the platforms and how they stack up, feel free to consult our free industry analysis content which includes articles like “Best of 2022: Top-Performing Crowdfunding Platforms” or “Which platform has the most Top Deals?”

How much money can I expect to be funneled into my raise from a Kingscrowd review?

We have observed an increase in commitments for raises that receive positive ratings. However, it’s challenging to attribute funding solely to us, as many variables are at play. Commitments from our users tend to come incrementally and usually do not generate any “spike” in investments. Our primary focus is on providing investors with information to make informed decisions, and we do not closely track the specific funding amounts associated with our reviews.

Who is in your network? Who consumes this content?

Kingscrowd has thousands of paid subscribers and tens of thousands of newsletter subscribers. Our audience is a diverse community of startup investors, founders, and industry professionals who regard Kingscrowd as the go-to source for online alternative investing data and intelligence.

How does Kingscrowd make money?

We aggregate deals from various platforms and produce the content mentioned above. Investors access this data and research by paying a monthly subscription fee or buying one-off reports. We occasionally accept sponsorships from funds, platforms, or other entities that allow us to stay independent in our choice of deals. We do not accept payments from founders to promote or feature raises in our newsletter or elsewhere. We always vet deals independently of financial incentives.

How do I get labeled as a “Hot Raise?”

We feature hot raises based on weekly and aggregate commitments compared to a raise’s maximum funding goal.

I haven't raised capital online yet but plan to in the near future. Does Kingscrowd have data for founders new to online private markets?

Congratulations on taking steps to fund your company. Our founder raise prediction tool may be suitable for you. This tool provides market comparisons based on your company’s size and industry. We share data on valuations, platforms, success rates, and more. Our tool is available here: https://kingscrowd.com/startup-valuation-tool/

I got featured by Kingscrowd or received an investment from Kingscrowd Capital! What’s next?

Congratulations! This is a huge accomplishment and means that our analysts truly believe in what you are building. Share this with your friends, family, and other networks. Show your investors. Post it to social media and spread the word, you earned it! We can’t wait to see where your company goes and wish you the best of luck. We also encourage you to stay in touch and update us on your progress.

What’s the portfolio tool for?

Once you start digging into this space a bit more, you’ll find that there are a lot of funding portals and a lot of companies raising on these portals at any given time. If you’re going to invest in a variety of companies across a variety of portals and industries (thus ensuring diversification in your portfolio), it becomes harder to track it all. Kingscrowd puts it all in one place for investors to make it a bit easier for the investors in the space. If you want more information on how to use the Portfolio tool, check out this article.

Is the portfolio free to use?

Yes! All you need is a free Kingscrowd account which you can sign up for here!

How do I filter by years on the portfolio page?

Once you’ve built up a portfolio of investments, you can start taking advantage of the ability to search and sort this table. You can search by investment amount, date, platform, security type, valuation/cap, and tags. Using the search box at the top right of the page, you can type a year (e.g., “2022”) to see your investments for 2022. You can also change the number of investments shown on each page and navigate to different pages by using the pagination buttons on the bottom right if you have more than 10 investments.

The valuations in my portfolio often differ from those listed on a company's raise page. Why is that?

When a company files with the SEC, we copy their information into our database, including the current valuation filed at the time. From the date of a company’s initial filing to the time they start advertising their raise the valuation can then change and deals like early bird specials can be offered. We do our best to reevaluate this data, but it isn’t always made obvious or easily available to Kingscrowd. Since company valuations will also change over time with each funding round, please ensure that you selected the correct raise to add to your investment portfolio. You can confirm this by looking at the investment’s platform and the close date and ensure that it agrees with the investment that you made. If you believe that any of our information is incorrect contact help@kingscrowd.com and we will reevaluate and make updates if needed. The ability to further personalize your portfolio, including valuations, is a priority for us, so please stay tuned for future updates.

I’m seeing a negative remaining capital amount, so does that mean that I lost money?

The first time you add an investment, you’ll find a summary at the top. This summary shows you the name of your portfolio, a description, and a summary of the number of investments, invested amount, maximum investment, and the remaining capital. For example, if you said you were investing $5,000, but you had already invested $5,100. This leaves you with a balance of -$100 USD. Because you have exceeded your allocation, it shows you have a negative $100 balance. The top right corner of the page has an editing button where you can change your name, portfolio description, and maximum investment. You have the option of deleting your portfolio as well, but that will delete your entire portfolio, and you will not be able to recover it.

What is the Portfolio "Tax Center"?

The portfolio Tax Center is a dashboard to help investors track all their portfolio exits and failures by year. For specific FAQs on the Tax Center and startup investing taxes in general, visit the Tax Center FAQ page here.

How do I update my credit card information?

In order to update your credit card information you’ll need to do the following: Please log in here: https://kingscrowd.com/login/ After logging in, visit the link here: https://kingscrowd.com/account/?action=subscriptions Click “Update” next to the subscription card you would like to update Enter your updated card information Hit “Submit”

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What’s the difference between Kingscrowd and Republic/StartEngine/Wefunder?

Unlike Republic, Wefunder, and StartEngine, we do not function as an online crowdfunding portal ourselves and are not regulated by FINRA or the SEC. Investors must create an account on each of those platforms in order to invest in any deal. Kingscrowd’s primary focus is to aid investors in aggregating and tracking investment opportunities on these platforms and others. By carefully evaluating the startups, we identify the most attractive investment prospects. In essence, we aggregate and analyze available opportunities to determine comprehensive ratings for companies seeking funding on the mentioned online portals and beyond.

We are a comprehensive ratings and analytics platform dedicated to the flourishing online private markets. Our mission is to assist investors in monitoring the numerous startup investment opportunities across platforms such as Republic, Honeycomb, Wefunder, and StartEngine. We meticulously evaluate all the tracked startups by gathering hundreds of data points and using five crucial metrics to pinpoint the most enticing investment prospects, employing our proven methodology. Ultimately, our goal is to offer you seamless access to startup investing through unbiased and thorough ratings and analytics.

Investment crowdfunding is a legal and legitimate source of capital raising for startups and companies. The JOBS Act was signed into law in 2012. In 2016, the SEC adopted rules — known as Regulation Crowdfunding — to implement the JOBS Act.

Investment crowdfunding allows companies (i.e. issuers) to raise capital from both accredited and non-accredited investors by selling Equity, SAFEs, and Convertible Notes (equity crowdfunding), as well as by selling debt or revenue-share notes (debt crowdfunding).

Unlike Republic, Wefunder, and StartEngine, we do not function as an online crowdfunding portal ourselves and are not regulated by FINRA or the SEC. Investors must create an account on each of those platforms in order to invest in any deal.

Kingscrowd’s primary focus is to aid investors in aggregating and tracking investment opportunities on these platforms and others. By carefully evaluating the startups, we identify the most attractive investment prospects. In essence, we aggregate and analyze available opportunities to determine comprehensive ratings for companies seeking funding on the mentioned online portals and beyond.

Kingscrowd is not a funding portal or broker-dealer. As such, companies looking to raise cannot do so on our platform. We simply rate the companies raising on the various platforms using our proprietary ratings and analytics platform.

Kingscrowd is not required to be licensed or registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). We are not regulated by them based on business as a ratings and analytics platform.

Welcome to the world of equity crowdfunding! If you’re interested in investing in companies raising online, then you can invest in them through online portals like Wefunder, Republic, and more. When you’ve found a company or startup that catches your eye and you want to research it to see if it’s a good investment, Kingscrowd makes that process easier for interested investors by aggregating most of the opportunities available and rating them based on our proprietary ratings and analytics model.

For more information, check out some of our educational articles like “What is Regulation CF?” and “What are the Risks and Rewards of Investing through Equity Crowdfunding?”

Unfortunately, we cannot tell you whether or not you should invest in specific startups as the decision ultimately resides on you. We also cannot provide any guidance or help you in your decision-making process if you are not a paying Kingscrowd customer. The ratings, research, and analytics we provide are our bread and butter. We encourage you to become an Edge subscriber in order to receive the full benefits of our ratings and analyses.

Kingscrowd is primarily a ratings and analytics service for the online private markets. It’s incredibly difficult to predict the future expected returns of privately held companies that do not regularly disclose their financials and other key information. The Kingscrowd team does everything it can to evaluate shareholder value, but at the end of the day, it’s a private company.

That’s the world we live in and it’s incredibly exciting!

Early-stage startups generally take seven or more years on average before they go public. Mergers and acquisitions are much harder to predict, but we can safely say that it’ll take quite some time before you’d likely see a return. Many startups fail or remain as private companies and never choose to go public or participate in a merger and acquisition transaction.

We track all the exits and failures that we are made aware of in our Company Exit Tracker. However, investors should always consult with their investment companies for the most accurate and up to date information.

Startups raising online (the companies that Kingscrowd rates and analyzes) are all privately owned. They are not traded publicly and thus do not have tickers or stock symbols.

No. Currently, Kingscrowd’s Startup Investing Analytics page covers equity (common and preferred), SAFEs, and convertible notes. Non-equity security types such as debt, revenue, share, and other non-equity securities are not included.

No. Kingscrowd is currently focused on the online startup investing market (i.e. investing in the companies themselves) and does not currently include fractional issuers under Reg A such as collectibles, wine, real estate, music or other royalties, franchises, or other assets where the underlying investment isn’t in the company itself.

We are continually striving to expand our data coverage and are coordinating with platforms to improve Reg A market coverage moving forward.

For questions or to report missing Reg A data, please reach out to help@kingscrowd.com

If you’ve invested in a company, you should either approach the company directly or visit the funding portal (StartEngine, Republic, Wefunder, etc…) through which you made the investment in order to get updates on their status. You can also track the company by adding it to your Kingscrowd Portfolio to get updates on valuations, new funding rounds, and exits and failures.

It is important to us that everyone has access to the tools needed to make informed decisions about startup investing. For more information on our ratings system, please visit: https://kingscrowd.com/kingscrowd-startup-rating-methodology/

Even with the use of AI, our investment team works hard to review every raise that comes through. Companies not selected for analysis could be due to a lack of information about their product or service. Investments in real estate funds, other types of funds, movies or sports teams are also not receiving reports currently, as our algorithm isn’t designed for them.

Please keep in mind, this is not a sign that a deal is not good or won’t be successful just because it doesn’t receive a report.

Here is a quick synopsis of which raises get rated (1-5 star rating with commentary), and also which ones get a deeper-dive analyst report:

Nearly 100% of Reg CF and Reg A deals get rated (1-5 stars, with commentary). There are a few exceptions to this, which are for raises that don’t really fit our rating algorithm based on startups, such as video games, films, sports teams, and investment properties. Also, sometimes we aren’t able to get all the information we need about a raise or some of the data is called into question, and so if we aren’t able to get in contact with the founder to confirm, then we might not rate a deal. Lastly, we do not currently rate Regulation D (Reg D) private deals.
- Basic deal information (terms, company details, etc.) are added within 24 hours of a deal going live on a funding platform
- We then typically aim to analyze and rate a deal within 5-10 business days of when it launches
A smaller subset of deals will also get a deeper-dive analyst report.
- There are a number of factors that influence whether a deal might get a more in-depth report written, including:
  - Do we think the deal will be successful? e.g. If a deal only raises $5,000 and we know won’t be successful or have much investor interest, we will focus our resources and due diligence on deals that have a higher probability of being successfully funded.
  - Do we think the deal will have significant investor interest, especially among Kingscrowd users?
  - Has the company launched popular funding rounds in the past?
  - Are we able to get a response from the founder? Sometimes we want to write a report but the founder(s) don’t respond, and so we won’t publish a report if the founder doesn’t get back to us on any open questions or concerns.
- Our Kingscrowd users and investors can help to influence which deals get reports written. We look at how many followers companies have, how many bullish/bearish votes a company has, and other means to gauge investor interest and try to focus our efforts on writing reports that will be of the most interest to our customers.

We automatically pull in new raises within 24 hours of a company officially launching their offering. If you don’t see it right away, try checking back later.

We do not track alternatives like Crypto-currency, Republic Note, Funds, or Real Estate, but we are always looking to expand our coverage in the future.

There are instances where a company may be “testing the waters” (TTW) and even though they appear to be accepting “reservations” on funding platforms, they have not officially filed with the SEC. Companies who are TTW will typically won’t have listed financials, are able to change their valuation and deal terms, and have not finalized all aspects of their offering. In these cases, we typically won’t start coverage of a raise until they officially launch their campaign by filing the appropriate forms with the SEC.

Nonetheless, if you believe a company should be included in our company search table, please contact customer support and we will investigate it.

Analyst Reports are always edited and reviewed by our team of expert investment analysts before being posted. However, we do use AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) to enhance the reports and expose more of the data that we collect on each raise in a scalable way. This allows us to not only provide deeper insights on a breadth of topics, but also write reports on more raises than we would without this capability.

Because of this, the AI-enhanced analyst reports provided by Kingscrowd are experimental in nature and may exhibit certain limitations and uncertainties. These reports are enhanced by artificial intelligence algorithms, which have the potential to hallucinate (e.g. generate fictitious information), interpret data incorrectly, omit information, or reference sources of data that may contain inaccuracies. However, all these reports today are edited, reviewed, and published by our expert analyst team, ensuring that our customers can trust the data in these reports.

While we strive to provide reliable and accurate information, it is essential to understand that the AI-enhanced reports should not be solely relied upon as the basis for making investment decisions. We strongly advise all users to exercise caution, conduct thorough due diligence, and verify data and facts independently before making any investment decisions.

The AI-enhanced analyst reports are intended to serve as one of the tools in your investment research process, offering additional insights and perspectives, and exposing more of our dataset to customers by transforming that data into natural language. They should be used in conjunction with other sources of information and professional judgment. Kingscrowd does not assume any liability for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of the AI reports or any investment decisions made based on them.

Investing in startups and early-stage companies involves inherent risks, and it is essential to consult with qualified professionals and seek independent financial advice before making any investment decisions.

Yes. We previously provided staff picks such as Top Deal, Deal to Watch, and Underrated, but we found that these caused a fair amount of confusion and frustration from our users and founders. To simplify the process and provide the maximum conviction for our top picks, we will still be writing “analyst reports” but will only be designating “Top Deals” moving forward.

Furthermore, we have now aligned our Top Deals with commitments from our Kingscrowd Capital fund. This means that any deal that gets a “Top Deal” rating will also receive an investment from our fund, showing that we are truly putting our money where our mouth is when it comes to believing in our ratings algorithm and Top Deal picks.

Edge members can expect to receive two Top Deals a month. Note that this may be higher or lower on any given month, depending on the quality of deal flow.

Absolutely! Your feedback and suggestions are valuable to us. Feel free to contact our customer support team here: help@kingscrowd.com, and they will forward it to our engineering team for review.

To help investors navigate this new and growing market, we’ve developed a single site packed with powerful tools and content.

You can start by clicking the question mark with the circle in the far right corner of your registered account name to view our New Search Features.

Watch Kingscrowd’s cutting-edge ratings & research platform in action in this video: Kingscrowd Startup Research Platform Demo

Take a look at this quick video to see all the new capabilities of Kingscrowd’s portfolio management tool here: https://kingscrowd.com/how-to-use-the-portfolio-tool/. We also have a video overview of the portfolio tool available here.

Additionally, our News and Crowdopedia Educational Content ensure that you stay up-to-date with all the information you need to get started investing right away!

Yes! We currently have a Community Round offering available on Wefunder. You can learn more at our investment page here.

Currently, we do not host guest or sponsored posts on our website. All of our content and marketing materials are provided by our in-house team.

Kingscrowd currently allows users to search and filter by “Impact Investing” deals. The criteria that Kingscrowd uses to determine whether a deal has “Impact” or not is:

Environmental Impact: Startups with core products or services diminishing the impact of human activity on the environment. These startups are either creating environmentally-friendly products or championing practices that fight against environmental damages.
Social impact: Startups with core products or services that address social injustice, inequality, and related challenges.
ESG Initiatives (non-impact): startups donating parts of their revenues, products, and/or enhancing green and social initiatives in their companies will not be marked as “Impact” deals. For example, a beer company operating on renewable energy, or a software startup implementing DEI practices and great governance.

Read our article here, but in short, it depends on the country you’re investing from and their rules and regulations on the online private markets.

Reach out to help@kingscrowd.com! We look forward to hearing from you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Take your startup investing to the next level with powerful data and expert analysis from Kingscrowd.

Get a free weekly Pitch Review!