Only about half of the companies that crowdfund ever file an annual report. We tracked every Reg CF company with a reporting obligation since 2016. Of those whose first report has come due, just 50% have ever filed one — and most who do file only once, then go quiet.

For the half we can still see, the story is good: aggregate revenue grew 1.8x since the raise, and those companies disclose more than 28,000 direct employees — roughly 224,000 jobs supported once you count the indirect jobs each one sustains (Paychex 8x).

But the reporting gap is real — and it's a question every policymaker studying small-business capital should be asking.

Comment "CCLEAR" and I'll send you the full brief. 

John Oliver’s main story a few weeks back focused on prediction markets, the fast-growing platforms that allow people to wager on the outcomes of future events.

The segment was funny because John Oliver is funny. The underlying story wasn’t.

Here’s the entire segment about prediction markets from his show. (As a note of caution to those unfamiliar with John Oliver, his humor is R-rated.)

Prediction markets increasingly allow people to bet on almost anything: elections, sports, political speeches, celebrity trials, weather, economic indicators and even war. Oliver’s central concern wasn’t simply that people are gambling. It was that these platforms are training people to see the world—politics, tragedy, public policy, human suffering—as a stream of monetizable events. You can profit from someone else’s tragedy—or lose money betting on it.

Furthermore, styling these gambling platforms as markets gives them the appearance of being investment opportunities. To anyone arguing that they a...more

The New York Times recently published a piece titled “Want to Invest in SpaceX? Here’s What to Know Ahead of Its I.P.O.”  In a section asking how much investors could make from the IPO, the article pointed to Tesla’s 2010 IPO and noted that a $1,000 investment in Tesla back then would be worth roughly $400,000 today.

That is not neutral context. That is jackpot framing.

Maybe the sentence is technically accurate. Maybe it is even relevant in the narrowest possible sense: Elon Musk led Tesla, Tesla went public, Tesla’s stock soared, and now another Musk company may go public. But journalism is not supposed to be a machine for laundering emotionally loaded anecdotes into investor excitement.

The message to readers is obvious: you missed Tesla, do not miss SpaceX.

That is FOMO with punctuation.

The deeper problem is the logical sleight of hand. Tesla’s past stock performance does not tell investors whether SpaceX is attractively priced. It does not tell them whether the IPO valuation...more

WASHINGTON, D.C. – May 27, 2026

The Crowdfunding Professional Association (CfPA) announced that its public comment letter to the U.S. Department of Labor is now available on Regulations.gov, responding to the Department’s proposed rule, “Fiduciary Duties in Selecting Designated Investment Alternatives” (RIN 1210-AC38).

The proposed rule would clarify how ERISA’s duty of prudence applies when plan fiduciaries select designated investment alternatives for participant-directed retirement plans, including asset allocation funds that may include alternative assets.

CfPA commended the Department for advancing a process-based, asset-neutral framework that preserves fiduciary discretion while recognizing the evolving role of private-market investment opportunities. At the same time, CfPA urged the Department to make the proposed safe harbor more practical by adding objective criteria and documentation thresholds that fiduciaries can apply consistently.

“Expanding access to private markets shou...more

This was originally posted at Superpowers for Good.

Teddy Lyons at Kingscrowd has done the investment crowdfunding community a real service with his analysis, “Who’s Hiding the Valuation? A Crowdfunding Transparency Study.” In the piece, Teddy and the Kingscrowd team reviewed 880 equity crowdfunding offerings and documented a troubling transparency gap, especially among Reg A+ offerings.

Teddy frames the issue well. “What is a startup actually worth?” he asks. That is the question every investor must answer before making an equity investment. Whether the security is common stock, preferred stock, a SAFE or a convertible note, valuation—or the mechanism for determining valuation—is central to the investor’s prospects for a financial return.

Other de...more

Not every company that needs capital is a good candidate for crowdfunding.

That is the first thing founders and executives should understand. Crowdfunding is not simply a financing transaction moved online. It is a public capital-raising campaign that requires a company to explain its business clearly, activate an audience, support investor diligence, comply with securities rules, and market the offering over a period of weeks or months.

The best candidates are not merely companies that want money. They are companies with leadership teams that can turn a financing need into a credible public campaign.

A strong crowdfunding candidate usually has five things: a clear story, a reachable audience or serious marketing plan, a concrete reason to raise now, the budget to run the campaign properly, and the discipline to manage ongoing compliance after the raise.

A clear and compelling story

A company does not need to be simple, but its public-facing story does need to be understandable.

Prospe...more