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What is KingsCrowd?
KingsCrowd is a ratings and analytics platform for the online private markets. We help investors track all startup investment opportunities available on platforms like Republic, SeedInvest, Wefunder, and StartEngine. We take all the startups that we track and rate them based on five key metrics to identify the most attractive investment opportunities according to our methodology. In summary, we make startup investing accessible to you through in-depth, independent ratings and analytics.
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What is equity crowdfunding? Is it legal?
Equity 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.
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What’s the difference between KingsCrowd and SeedInvest/Republic/StartEngine/Wefunder?
KingsCrowd is a ratings and analytics platform for the online private markets. We help investors track investment opportunities on portals like Republic, Wefunder, SeedInvest, and StartEngine. We are not an online crowdfunding portal ourselves. We take all the startups that we track and rate them based on five key metrics to identify the most attractive investment opportunities according to our methodology. To sum it up, we aggregate the opportunities available, take in data on them, use a little human judgment, and determine a rating for companies raising on the above online portals (and others).
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I’m new to the equity crowdfunding space, where do I start?
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 SeedInvest, 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?” -
Should I invest in X company? / Is it worth investing in X company?
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 a Edge Pro level subscriber in order to receive the full benefits of our ratings and analyses.
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What are company X’s future returns? How do I make money investing in these companies?
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!
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How long before I see a return on my investment?
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.
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What is Company X’s ticker/stock symbol?
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.
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Does KingsCrowd’s Market Analytics page track debt deals?
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.
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Does KingsCrowd’s Market Analytics page track deals across collectibles and fractional issuer platforms like Rally, Otis, Vint, Fundrise?
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 data@kingscrowd.com
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I invested in Company X, what’s the status of the company?
If you’ve invested in a company, you should either approach the company directly or visit the funding portal (SeedInvest, Republic, Wefunder, etc…) through which you made the investment in order to get updates on their status.
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How do ratings work and what do they mean?
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/
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I can’t find a company in the company search table; will you be adding it soon?
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.
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Why aren’t there Analyst Reports (e.g. Top Deal, Deal to Watch, etc.) for every company?
Our investment team is working hard to review every raise that comes through. Each week, we aim to publish four to five analyst reports for a total of 16 to 20 monthly reports. Companies not selected for an analyst report could be due to a lack of information about their product or service. Other times, a limited amount of KingsCrowd resources can also prevent some exceptional companies from being covered. Please keep in mind, this is not a sign that a deal is not good or successful just because it doesn’t receive a report.
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Can I make suggestions on features to have added to the platform?
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.
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Are there any tutorials I can watch to gain more knowledge on how to use KingsCrowd’s service?
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!
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Can I raise capital on KingsCrowd?
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!
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Can I invest in KingsCrowd?
Yes, the opportunity to invest in KingsCrowd is now open! Whether you are an accredited or retail investor, we are eager to welcome you to our community. We want to ensure that investing with us is accessible to all, so retail investors may invest no more than 10% of their annual income or net worth (whichever is higher). Our dedicated team has put in extensive effort to make this possible and we are thrilled to share that the wait is finally over. Head over to https://invest.kingscrowd.com/ to take advantage of this exciting opportunity.
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Do you accept sponsored guest posts on your platform?
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.
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Is KingsCrowd licensed or registered by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)?
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.
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What are the rules regarding foreign investors?
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.
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My question isn’t listed…
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How do I get my company featured on KingsCrowd?
At this time, KingsCrowd produces in-depth Analyst Reports on three to five deals per week based on their investment potential and product concept.
If your company was not selected for an Analyst Report, it will still receive a rating via our comprehensive, data-driven platform.
Alternatively, we could have simply not gotten to it yet. It takes time for us to aggregate companies, assign them to our writers, and copy edit work. We want to make sure that the work we put forward is the very best. We want to show our readers just how great your company is. Please understand that this takes time and we appreciate your patience!
For more information on how we produce Analyst Reports, check out this article.
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What does KingsCrowd look for in a company?
You can check out the five-point rating methodology used by each of our analysts to evaluate companies here: https://www.kingscrowd.com/ratings/
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Am I raising this round on a platform covered by KingsCrowd?
KingsCrowd evaluates all active deals across more than 60 platforms. Don’t see your raise? Reach out, and we’ll be happy to add it!
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What are the different types of reviews released by KingsCrowd?
KingsCrowd produces four primary content types: features, founder profiles, ratings, and reports, all broken down below.
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What online equity platform is best?
Not all platforms are created equal. We at KingsCrowd recognize that different platforms suit different company needs.
Some platforms have a much higher deal volume than others. These include, according to dollars raised, StartEngine, Wefunder, Republic, Netcapital, and MicroVentures. On the other hand, some platforms (like Mainvest) host primarily debt-based deals. Others, like Netcapital, offer a secondary trading platform, and StartEngine also acts as a broker-dealer. Finally, platforms like SeedInvest host Reg A, 506c, and 506b raises in addition to their Reg CF raises.
We suggest you choose a platform based on what best suits the needs of your company and your raise.
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How much money can I expect to be funneled into my raise after receiving a positive review?
We have definitely seen an uptick in commitments from raises that we rate positively. It is really hard, however, to be absolutely certain that it is from us, as there are a million other variables to take into account. We do, however, attach bitly links in our backend to track how much traffic we drive to a raise page.
Additionally, we work on behalf of investors, so this is not something we track closely, as our focus is enabling investors to make informed decisions.
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Who is in your network? Who consumes this content?
KingsCrowd currently has more than 420,000 users and counting! Our users tend to be active crowdfunding investors (5 or more investments in the asset class per year). Our average user is 33-55 years old and has $150-200K in annual income. At this time, we do not have data on what percent of our users are accredited investors.
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What is KingsCrowd’s business model? How does KingsCrowd make money?
We aggregate deals from all the platforms and produce the content outlined above. To access this data and research, investors pay us a monthly subscription fee.
We never take money from founders or platforms.
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How do I get into the KingsCrowd’s newsletter?
Deals that are highlighted in long-form feature reports (Top Deals and Deal To Watch) are featured in the weekly newsletter, as well as some occasional guest features! Additionally, some founder profiles will be featured.
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I’m a founder and I see missing/incorrect information about my company, what can I do?
Are you currently raising capital for your company on a crowdfunding platform such as Wefunder, StartEngine, Republic, or SeedInvest (just to name a few)? If so, the moment a startup files with the SEC, we pull their information into our database and begin creating an investment review page for them. Should any changes need to be made to your company profile, please contact customer support and we will coordinate with our analyst team to make the necessary changes.
Additionally, you can claim your company by visiting any current or past raise pages and selecting the “Claim this raise page” link at the bottom. After submitting the form you will be contacted by a member of our team to discuss verification and how we can help you going forward.
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I would like to request a founder profile. Who should I contact?
If we find that a startup is interesting enough, we will on occasion contact the founder and provide a Founder Profile about them and their company. We do all the legwork and will contact you if necessary, so you don’t have to do anything on your end.
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What makes a Top Deal?
A Top Deal is a raise that received a 4.0 or higher from our proprietary ratings algorithm and that wows the majority of our analysts in all five of our ratings categories. If you are a Top Deal founder, congrats! We were quite impressed.
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What makes a Deal to Watch?
A Deal to Watch is a raise that received a rating between 3.0-4.0 and that impressed our investment team with its potential as an investment opportunity.
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How do I get labeled as a deal with strong momentum?
We calculate deal momentum based on the weekly and aggregate commitments throughout a raise compared to that raise’s maximum funding goal.
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New information/data has become available on my company since my raise went live. How can I be reconsidered?
First and foremost, know that we base all of our ratings on what is available to the public, that includes the raise page details and the SEC filing. This is not only to make sure our investors are informed, but also to protect your privacy as a founder. If this data has changed, our rating will likely still reflect only what has been filed.
Additionally, KingsCrowd always reevaluates companies upon new raises. We love seeing growth and change. Frequently, we report on companies for the first time upon a second or third raise, or if we published a report on a prior raise, we will follow up with an update on what has changed.
Please understand, however, that once we make a decision, that decision is rarely changed. It is our priority to provide our readership with consistent, accurate, data.
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I got featured by KingsCrowd! What’s next?
If you received a Top Deal or a Deal To Watch rating, 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.
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My question isn’t listed…
Reach out to help@kingscrowd.com! We look forward to hearing from you.
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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.
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Is the portfolio free to use?
Yes! All you need is a free KingsCrowd account which you can sign up for here!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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My question isn’t listed…
Reach out to help@kingscrowd.com! We look forward to hearing from you.
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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”
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How do I reset or change my password?
If you are unable to log into your KingsCrowd account to make updates, and are unable to reset your password from here, please contact help@kingscrowd.com so that we can help!
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My payment failed and the funds are available now, how long will it take to re-rerun the payment?
In the event a failed payment occurs, we will attempt to re-run it automatically. You will receive an auto-generated email asking you to update your payment information. Please do so if necessary. You don’t have to do anything further on your side if your payment method is up to date. If you wish to verify whether the payment was processed successfully, please contact customer support and one of our representatives will make the verification.
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Can I upgrade / downgrade my subscription?
Upgrade or downgrade to any plan of choice by going to https://kingscrowd.com/subscribe/ and choosing the desired subscription (e.g. going from monthly to annual, or from Edge to Edge Pro) and checking out.
Upgraded or downgraded subscriptions will be prorated based on the current membership level and the number of days remaining on the current plan.
Proration amounts and terms will be shown on the checkout page before entering payment details and submitting the payment to upgrade or downgrade.
For example, if you are 15 days into a monthly subscription, and you upgrade your Edge to an Edge Pro, you’ll get the equivalent of half a month of Edge off of your new Edge Pro subscription for the first month. This will give you access until your next billing renewal date, at which point the subscription will renew for the full monthly rate for the next month.
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How do I cancel my subscription?
If you wish to have your subscription canceled log into your KingsCrowd account, navigate to the My Portfolio tab, and under Settings >> Subscriptions. Please note, after your subscription has been canceled you will still be able to access KingsCrowd product features for the remainder of your current, pre-paid billing period. Afterward, you will be automatically downgraded to a free plan.
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How do I delete my KingsCrowd account?
You may request to have your account deleted by contacting customer support.
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How long will it take for me to receive a refund?
A refund can take from five to seven business days, depending on how fast your bank processes the transaction. The same is true for gift cards.
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I’m no longer receiving KingsCrowd Investor emails, why am I not getting any of them?
There could be several reasons:
- The email address on your account is not current.
- You no longer receive any KingsCrowd related content because you previously unsubscribed.
- Subscription-based newsletters are no longer available to your account because it was downgraded.
What can I do to turn them back on?
If none of the above applies to you, please check the spam folder of your email account. We recommend you add hello@kingscrowd.com to your email contacts or follow the instructions provided by your email provider for whitelisting us.
If you continue to experience problems, please contact customer support.
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How do I contact customer service?
Would you like a customer support representative to assist you? To contact us, send an email to help@kingscrowd.com.