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Deadline Season Meets a More Concentrated Crowdfunding Market
April 2026 crowdfunding data shows Reg CF lagging prior years, Reg A+ attracting larger checks, and further platform consolidation reshaping the market.
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CHART OF THE WEEK
By Chris Martin | Read
April is not just another month for investment crowdfunding. Reg CF capital held near March levels, but remained well below the last two years, while Reg A+ attracted larger checks from investors with more capital to deploy. This week’s chart looks at deadline-season pressure, platform concentration, Angel Funding’s exit, and what April’s numbers suggest about a more disciplined crowdfunding market.
UPCOMING EVENTS
If you're in the Atlanta area, join us on Wednesday, June 10th (5–7:30 PM ET) at Industrious for an evening of live startup pitches, investor Q&A, and networking — sponsored by Fidelity. Hear directly from founders actively raising via Reg CF, including Totem, Doroni Aerospace, and Attorney Shield. Kingscrowd CEO Chris Lustrino will host and provide market context. Whether you're writing your first check or your hundredth, this is a great opportunity to meet the companies behind the deals.
Spots are limited — grab your ticket below.
KINGSCROWD PODCAST
Totem has generated more than 600 million organic social views while building a wearable device that helps users locate friends and family without relying on phones or GPS. In this week’s episode, the Kingscrowd team examines the company’s early traction, revenue growth, valuation, and long-term scalability as it looks to expand beyond music festivals into cruises, theme parks, and venue partnerships.
PITCH REVIEW 💸
By Léa Bouhelier-Gautreau \ Deal Report
Brief: SorbiForce is an infrastructure battery company developing non-metal, stationary energy storage systems for utilities, data centers, microgrids, and critical infrastructure. Originating from R&D in Ukraine and now operating in Arizona, the company uses carbon-based electrodes and a water-based electrolyte to avoid reliance on lithium, flammable solvents, and critical minerals. Its battery platform is designed to provide both rapid power stabilization and longer-duration storage, helping manage renewable intermittency, grid volatility, and rising energy demand.
Léa’s Quick Take:
What makes SorbiForce interesting is that the company did not start in a Silicon Valley lab chasing the next EV battery trend. It started in western Ukraine, where unstable infrastructure and energy reliability problems were part of everyday life. I like that the founders were not trying to build a slightly better lithium-ion battery for consumer devices. They were trying to solve a much more practical problem: how to store and stabilize electricity safely without relying on expensive or geopolitically sensitive materials.
That focus still shapes the company today.
Most battery startups are competing directly against lithium-ion on energy density or EV performance. SorbiForce is taking a different approach. The company is building a stationary battery platform for utilities, AI data centers, industrial sites, microgrids, and critical infrastructure operators. In other words, customers who care less about squeezing maximum range into a vehicle and more about keeping the lights on when the grid becomes unstable.
What stands out to me is the positioning between traditional batteries and power-quality systems. SorbiForce claims its architecture can react to power fluctuations in milliseconds while also providing multi-hour energy storage. That matters because modern infrastructure increasingly needs both. AI data centers, factories, and renewable-heavy grids are all dealing with volatile loads and rising electricity demand simultaneously.
The chemistry itself is also differentiated. Instead of lithium and flammable solvents, SorbiForce uses carbon-based electrodes and a water-based electrolyte. If the company’s claims hold up through certification and deployment, that could become a meaningful advantage in markets where fire safety, permitting, and insurance costs are becoming larger concerns. Utilities and critical infrastructure operators are far more conservative buyers than consumers, so safety matters.
I also think the timing helps. AI infrastructure is putting enormous pressure on electrical systems globally, and utilities are struggling to modernize aging grids fast enough. Battery storage demand continues growing rapidly, but the industry is still heavily dependent on lithium supply chains concentrated in a handful of countries. SorbiForce’s localized “micro-factory” manufacturing concept fits well into the broader push toward domestic infrastructure and supply-chain resilience.
That said, this is still a very risky company.
SorbiForce currently has no revenue, ongoing losses, and limited liquidity. The company still needs to complete certification, validate long-term performance in real-world environments, scale manufacturing, and convert pilot discussions into actual commercial deployments. Battery history is filled with companies that built impressive prototypes but struggled to manufacture reliably and economically at scale.
Competition is also intense. Lithium iron phosphate systems continue getting cheaper, safer, and more widely adopted. At the same time, alternative storage companies like Form Energy, ESS Tech, ZincFive, and Redflow are all pursuing different approaches to safer or non-lithium infrastructure storage.
Still, I think SorbiForce has become more interesting over the last year. The company has progressed from concept-stage messaging into pilot production, assembled a 15 kWh industrial deployment unit, improved its infrastructure positioning, and built relationships with organizations like Duke Energy and Arizona State University. The valuation also became slightly more favorable after a cap table cleanup reduced the implied valuation despite a higher share price.
Overall, SorbiForce feels less like a traditional battery startup and more like an early infrastructure technology company positioning itself for a future in which stable electricity becomes just as important as electricity generation.
STAFF PICKS 🌶️
By Léa Bouhelier-Gautreau
Groma is using AI to modernize small multifamily real estate by sourcing deals, standardizing renovations, and automating a large part of property management operations. Groma is a REIT investment opportunity available through Wefunder.
By Teddy Lyons
Biostate AI creates biomedical AI to predict diseases early and drive cures via affordable RNA/DNA testing. It has $20M from Accel and leading VCs, 30+ partnerships with top hospitals and 100K+ samples, 15+ patents, plus a repeat founder with prior $20M genomics revenue.
By Teddy Lyons
TOKYOPOP discovers and scales anime/manga IP into multi-format franchises from books to anime and merch. Operating at a $15M revenue run rate, it has published over 10,000 titles across 100+ IPs, reached 50 countries in 30+ languages, and secured partnerships with Disney and Crunchyroll.
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