NEWS & NOTES
🎉 A Big Exit for a Wefunder Success Story
Fathom, the AI notetaker that raised more than $3.2 million from 2,000+ investors on Wefunder, has been acquired by Superhuman. One early investor reported their shares were valued at nearly 13X their original investment, marking an exciting outcome for a startup backed by the crowdfunding community.
🎧 The Kingscrowd Podcast Is Back With a New Episode
The Kingscrowd Podcast is back with a new analyst-led format focused on the startup investment opportunities our team is researching. In this episode, Léa and Teddy join Brian for a Deal Review of bluShift Aerospace, digging into the company's pivot, recent customer traction, economics, risks, and what they're watching as the company scales.
🎙️ New Episode of the Inside Startup Investing Podcast
The founder who scaled Hollywood Video to 2,000 locations is taking on his next big challenge. 151 Coffee founder Mark Wattles joins Chris Lustrino to discuss how he’s applying that experience to drive-thru coffee, with a goal of growing from 15 locations today to 1,000 over the next decade.
📣 Kingscrowd Startup Showcase San Francisco Is This Thursday!
There’s still time to join us for the Kingscrowd Startup Showcase San Francisco on October 8 at 5 PM PT during SF Tech Week.
Kingscrowd is hosting the event at Wefunder’s San Francisco office, where you’ll hear directly from founders actively raising capital, ask questions, get expert commentary from Kingscrowd’s Léa Bouhelier-Gautreau, and connect with fellow investors.
If you’ll be in San Francisco, don’t miss your chance to join us.
🏛️ Kingscrowd Startup Showcase Heads to Washington DC
Join us on October 20 at 3 PM ET at the National Union Building for the Kingscrowd Startup Showcase Washington DC, featuring live pitches from founders actively raising capital, investor insights, and networking. Kingscrowd’s Teddy Lyons will host, with Oshi, Emission Free Generators, and EpiBone already confirmed to pitch.
Come meet the founders, hear their pitches firsthand, and connect with fellow investors in Washington DC.
💵 WEBINAR NEXT WEEK: Productive Patience - What Your Capital Can Do While You Wait for the Next Great Opportunity
What should your money be doing when you’re waiting for the right investment opportunity? Next Tuesday, October 13 at 1 PM CT, Kingscrowd CEO Chris Lustrino sits down with Dr. Steven Kaufman, Founder and CEO of Zeus Companies, to explore the real cost of holding cash, how income-producing real estate notes work, and the risks investors should understand before putting their capital to work.
CHART OF THE WEEK
By Brian Belley | Read
Fathom’s acquisition, mentioned above, highlights crowdfunding’s potential upside. But what happens beyond the standout success stories? Republic’s 2025 annual report offers a rare portfolio-level view of the securities it received as crowdfunding fees, whose proceeds help fund potential Republic Note distributions.
Across 645 disclosed holding records, Republic identified 92 (14.3%) as insolvent, dormant or dissolved, with no cash proceeds expected. Another 28 (4.3%) had reported liquidation outcomes: ten exceeded original issuance value, nine matched it and nine paid less. That liquidated subset returned an estimated $88.50 for every $100 of original issuance value.
The remaining 81.4% had no terminal outcome disclosed, so this is not a final portfolio scorecard or an industry-wide failure rate. This week, we explore what these disclosures reveal about payouts and losses, why timing matters, and why an acquisition or IPO doesn’t necessarily mean cash in an investor’s pocket.
PITCH REVIEW 💸
By Léa Bouhelier-Gautreau | Deal Report
RePurpose Energy (on StartEngine)
Léa’s Quick Take:
Many technologies end up going from novelties to commodities. That’s what I’ve been observing in the energy storage system (ESS) market. Now that battery systems with large capacity and established reliability have flooded the market, the new goals are lower costs and greater sustainability.
This is exactly where RePurpose Energy is positioning itself. The company takes used EV batteries and repurposes them into energy storage systems for small commercial customers. The goal is to extend batteries’ lives by another 10 years while cutting ESS prices in half.
Great, RePurpose fits the current market needs. But does that make it a company worth investing in?
As I started my diligence process, I had one specific question for each of our evaluation sections. Each one could make or break the deal:
Performance: What does the commercial pipeline look like?
Team: Is this the right team to bring RePurpose to commercialization
Differentiation: Is RePurpose early enough in the market, or are there already too many well-funded competitors?
Market: How big can RePurpose truly become?
Price: Based on the size of the market and the scale of its competitors, does RePurpose’s valuation offer attractive return potential?
I did the diligence, learned a lot, and I’m sharing my findings in this report.
Ready to go deeper on every deal?
The Pitch Review gives you a glimpse of the research available with Kingscrowd Edge. Edge members get 5-star quantitative ratings, expert-reviewed analyst reports, and portfolio tracking across every active raise, plus access to Top Deals, the highest-conviction opportunities identified by the Kingscrowd analyst team. Only a select few raises make the cut. If you're not already an Edge member, try it free for 7 days.
STAFF PICKS 🌶️
By Léa Bouhelier-Gautreau
Finlete lets investors invest in baseball prospects and earn attractive returns if they succeed in MLB. The platform itself is now raising funds. It proved early traction and is now raising at an $18 million valuation cap. In the report, I do the math for you: how many athletes in how many sports can realistically raise money on Finlete platform every year, and will that be enough to give generous returns to investors who invest in the platform?
By Teddy Lyons
NOSH Simple combines chef-prepared food with 24/7 self-service kiosks. Read our analyst report for a closer look at its franchise expansion strategy, and how this company compares to our KC Capital investments in this space.
By Teddy Lyons
SemPresto looks a lot like one of KC Capital’s portfolio companies, Pirouette Pharma. The company is creating a new autoinjector category that is attached directly to a cell phone. Are they as compelling of an investment opportunity as Pirouette? I’ll be breaking that down in the Analyst report.
Until next time!
Thanks for reading and for being part of the Kingscrowd community. If you found something valuable in this issue, share the newsletter with a fellow investor. We’ll see you again in two weeks.
