How Raise Sonar tracks raises

Sources

27 sources are read today: the 26 platforms in the platform directory and SEC EDGAR. Each is read in one of three ways:

• SEC filings. Forms on EDGAR, the SEC’s public database. A US raise’s Form C is usually filed days before its platform lists it, so a filing is often how we first hear of a raise.
• Public API. The JSON a platform’s own pages load, read without an account.
• Public pages. The HTML a visitor is served, and public documents it links, such as a KIIS.

A headless browser reads the platforms that turn plain requests away. No source is read with an account, so what a platform keeps behind its investor login is not here. Form Cs name their intermediary, so EDGAR also brings in US raises on portals with no adapter of their own. Those show from the filing, without live progress.

A field a source does not state stays empty rather than being guessed, and amounts are kept in the raise’s own currency. The statistics page, which adds them up, says how it converts them. One reading is different: a raise page’s summary of the pitch is written by a language model from the text of the campaign page, so it is our wording and not the source’s. It is labelled as our summary.

How often sources are checked

One pass reads every source in turn, every hour. Passes never overlap, and a source that fails is logged and does not stop the others. Some reads are slower than the pass, as the table above says:

• Round and pitch pages. Wefunder’s listing and Crowdcube’s do not state every term, so each round’s page is read once a day, and every pass lays what it stated over the listing.
• Heavy pages. On Netcapital, Highlander and Silicon Prairie, a raise’s page is read again when its total moves, and once a day regardless.
• Documents. A filed form never changes, so each is read once. A KIIS or VIB is read once per link, or at most once a day.

When a read fails, its raises keep their last values until a later pass succeeds, so a figure can be older than the schedule suggests. Each platform’s profile in the directory says when it was last read. Our health check reports each source’s last read, and any source with no new raise in a week, or in longer spells for DealMaker and GigaStar, whose raises arrive more slowly.

Change detection

Each pass stores a reading of each raise: the amount raised, the investor count, the close date and the status. The new reading is compared with the last, and what differs is recorded once as an event on the raise. Readings are kept, so a raise’s history can be drawn from them.

• A new raise. The first pass that sees it.
• A moved close date. Later or earlier. An upcoming raise’s date giving way to its offer’s close is a launch, not a move.
• A funding milestone. The amount raised crossing 50%, 90% and 100% of the target between two passes. These go on the raise’s timeline and send no email.
• Near cap. The amount raised crossing 90% of the maximum between two passes.
• Changed terms. The target, maximum, minimum, share price or valuation moving, or a Form C/A taking over from its Form C.

An empty field means the source does not state it, so a figure appearing or disappearing is not a change of terms or close date: a page layout shifting emails nobody. If an implausible share of one source’s raises change terms or close date in one pass, that reads as our reader misreading the page, not a wave of amendments. The new terms are saved and no alert goes.

Platforms seldom say a raise has ended, so each pass works it out. A raise past its stated close date has closed, and a Form C-W means it was withdrawn. A raise gone from its listing for 3 good passes and 14 days has closed if it reached its goal, or if it has money in and its platform states no close date. Any other is marked as removed from the listing, which says what we saw and not why. Raise pages stay up after a raise ends.

A raise page’s “Last updated” moves only when what the page says changes: its status, investor count, target, maximum, close date or tagline, or the amount raised by 1% of the target.

Alert timing

Alerts are by email, on the Alerts and Pro plans, for raises that match a rule or that someone follows. Everyone subscribed gets the Weekly Sonar on Monday at 08:00 their time.

The closing marks of 7 days, 72 hours and 24 hours are counted in absolute hours, so a change of clocks does not move them. Only the tightest mark already passed is recorded: a raise first seen with 12 hours left gets the 24-hour reminder and not the earlier ones.

A recorded event is not yet an email. Launch, near-cap, perk-expiry and term-change alerts go on a run every ten minutes, and closing reminders on an hourly run that groups the raises you follow, so an email can follow the change by up to one pass plus one run. Inside the quiet hours a rule sets, an alert waits until they end. An alert not sent within 48 hours of its event is dropped.

Momentum

Momentum alarms compare how fast a raise is filling with its own usual pace. Usual pace is the median of its daily amounts over the 7 complete days before the last 24 hours. Days are the platform’s local calendar days, and an amount between two readings is read on the straight line between them. It is worked out again after every pass.

A raise is not measured, and sends no alarm, while it has under 7 complete days of readings, while its platform changes the figure less than once a day over the last week or is marked as not publishing progress, or while its usual pace is zero or below.

An alarm fires once, then not again until its condition has been clear for 24 hours in a row. Whatever already holds the first time a raise is measured counts as known, not news. A subscriber gets one pace email per raise a day and 3 single pace emails a day at most, with the rest sent together. Projections assume today’s pace continues. Pace often changes.

Deduplication

One raise can reach us several ways: as a Form C and a listing, or as a platform’s preview page and the offer that follows it. Three layers keep it to one raise and one email.

• The same name on the same portal. A Form C whose portal and normalised issuer name match a listing is folded into that listing, which has the live progress. A Reg A+ listing or a DealMaker row never stands in for a Form C, as an issuer can run both at once.
• A score for the rest. A brand is often not the legal name, so each new raise is scored against the raises on its platform, from 0 to 100, on the name, CIK, intermediary, dates and amounts. A pair at 75 or above is merged and the rest are left for review. Some things rule a pair out whatever its score, such as a different intermediary or offering windows that never meet, and figures alone never merge two companies. Both rows are kept, and the merged raise’s address redirects to the one that stays.
• One event, one email. A raise records each event once, however many passes see it, and a subscriber gets one email per event, however many of their rules match. Someone told of a raise from its Form C is not told “New raise” again by its listing.

Eligibility badges

The badge says what a platform states about who may invest, and it comes from one field. “Open to foreign investors” means the source says residents of other countries may invest. “CA residents only”, with the platform’s country code, means it says only residents of that country may, and it shows as restricted to a viewer elsewhere. With neither stated there is no badge, because not stated is not a no.

It can come from Birchal, Capital Cell, Crowdcube, Dozen, FrontFundr, Highlander, pitchIN, Republic Europe, Spreds and StartEngine: some give one answer for the whole platform, others one per raise. A rule set to “open to me” checks the country of residence saved on the account, and only a stated restriction rules a raise out.

The badge is about residence alone. It does not check accreditation, investment limits, tax relief or a platform’s own onboarding, and the platform decides who it accepts.

Known gaps

Platforms not read yet

7 platforms in the directory are planned, and nothing reads them yet:

• Crowdberry. Its site challenges every automated request, a headless browser’s too.
• Equivesto. No adapter yet.
• Invesdor. No adapter yet.
• Kria. Its offers are on a host whose robots.txt disallows all crawlers. An adapter is built and held back.
• Opstart. No adapter yet.
• PledgeMe. No adapter yet.
• SeedBlink. Its live deals are behind an investor login.

Fields we have no figure for

Most gaps are a source not publishing a field in public, often keeping it behind its investor login. Vicinity and GigaStar are different: we read their filings, not their marketplaces. EDGAR and DealMaker count as having none of what only their DealMaker offering pages add.

Cancelled investments can reduce totals

The amount raised is the platform’s figure at the last pass, and we do not adjust it. Investors can cancel: under Reg CF, for any reason until 48 hours before the deadline, and other regulations, such as ECSPR, have withdrawal rules of their own. So a total can fall, and the last one before a close can be more than the company ends up with. We do not read Form C-U, the progress update an issuer files with the SEC, so our last reading is not checked against it.

• A fall is stored as read, and a raise’s history shows it.
• An alert already sent stands. Near cap and each milestone fire once per raise, so a raise that falls back and crosses the line again sends nothing new.
• A day of net cancellations counts as a negative day in usual pace, and a raise whose usual pace is zero or below is not measured.
• Momentum emails about a Reg CF raise carry this warning.
• pitchIN’s investors can withdraw for six business days after a campaign ends. A raise in that period stays open, with its close date at the period’s end.

What “amount raised” includes

It is each platform’s own figure. Mamacrowd’s can include money raised offline, and FrontFundr’s and EquiFund’s add money the issuer raised elsewhere. On an upcoming raise it can be reservations, not investments. DealMaker’s sites show lifetime totals across rounds, so we do not read them.

Raises a source leaves out

• Capital Cell’s priority-access rounds, which no listing links.
• A CONDA raise listed only on its Italian site, as we read the German listing.
• “Coming soon” cards on Mamacrowd, CrowdFundMe and Spreds, which have no page to read yet.
• Vicinity’s private offerings for its members, which file no Form C.
• Reg A+ raises through other brokers, unless a platform we read lists them: a Form 1-A is read only where DealMaker is the broker.
• An issuer’s earlier Form C, once a later one updates its row: EDGAR rows are kept per issuer.

Loans are stored and have a page, but stay out of the live counts and alerts.

Figures are as of the last pass

Nothing here is live to the second, and a platform’s own figure can be wrong. Check every detail on the platform before you act on it. To report a figure that looks wrong, write to support@raisesonar.com.