A Market in Motion: What’s Next for Reg CF?

CHART OF THE WEEK 📈

By Chris Martin | Read

The start of 2025 has revealed shifting investor sentiment, platform performance trends, and the companies that are breaking through in an evolving crowdfunding landscape. While StartEngine maintained steady leadership with $8.3M raised, Wefunder saw a dip from December’s high, and DealMaker rebounded slightly after a sharp contraction. Meanwhile, platforms like Vicinity and Angel Funding made surprising gains, proving that high-performing campaigns can emerge from unexpected places.

Additional Insights:

• Top-performing companies outpaced their goals: White Elephants’ Technology raised 154% of its max, while Moneco followed at 153%.

• Brave the Dark outperformed expectations, surpassing its fundraising goal at 108% while contributing to Angel Funding’s strong track record.

• Sustainability continues to gain traction, with Hempitecture raising $1.2M on Wefunder as it pushes toward its $5M goal.

The first quarter of 2025 will be telling—are we seeing early signs of stabilization, or is another shake-up coming? Stay ahead of the trends with our full analysis.

👉 Read the full analysis here to find out.

INVESTMENT ROUNDTABLE

By Sam Fiske / Watch

This week on Investment Roundtable, we dive into two major topics:

📈 IPOs & Investment Crowdfunding – Beta Bionics and Cloudastructure went public, but investors faced major challenges accessing their shares.

💰 Access to Capital & Black Founders – Does investment crowdfunding truly democratize capital? Our Chart of the Week shows Black founders receive 6x more funding in crowdfunding than through venture capital—but it’s still not enough.

Join Brian, Leah, Teddy & Scott as they explore trends, challenges, and opportunities in online startup investing.

SIGN UP FOR Q1 DEMO DAY

Get ready to kick off the new year with a bang at Kingscrowd's Q1 2025 Demo Day! Powered by Capital Department, our first pitch event will spotlight six innovative startups of the year, making it our largest demo day ever.

You'll have the opportunity to engage directly with the founders during live Q&A sessions, allowing you to dive deeper into their innovative projects and get your questions answered in real-time. Additionally, you'll gain exclusive insights into the startups' growth potential and investment landscapes, complemented by expert analysis and ratings from Kingscrowd.

The Companies:

• BitterBrains: Transforming tech education and community engagement.

• HAVN: Pioneering fabric technology for enhanced health and wellness.

• Health Care Originals: Offering AI-driven healthcare solutions for chronic conditions.

• Namecoach: Ensuring accurate pronunciation of names through AI technology.

• RISE Robotics: Electrifying industrial machinery for a cleaner future.

• Qnetic: Innovating sustainable energy storage solutions.

PITCH REVIEW 💸

By Teddy Lyons \ Deal Report

Brief: Sembly AI, founded in 2019 and headquartered in New York, is a SaaS platform specializing in AI-driven meeting solutions. The company leverages advanced natural language processing to record, transcribe, and analyze meetings across platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet, transforming discussions into actionable insights. Key differentiators include its ability to generate AI-powered summaries, track action items, and provide sentiment analysis and engagement metrics, making it a valuable tool for productivity-focused enterprises. Sembly AI has raised over $8M across seven funding rounds. Its strategic partnerships, such as with MIGSO-PCUBED, further enhance its market position by combining project management expertise with Sembly's voice analytics technology. Despite competition from other meeting-focused AI tools, Sembly's robust integration capabilities and focus on actionable business outcomes set it apart as a promising player in the enterprise AI space

Key People: Sembly AI's leadership team is led by co-founders Gil Makleff (CEO), and Artem Koren (CPO), who established the company in 2019. Makleff previously had a long career in management consulting, with over three decades of experience helping grow companies through his consulting firm, UMT. He eventually sold his consulting group to EY. Koren brings over 16 years of product management experience, with AI learning applied since 2009, and has a diverse background as a systems engineer, product manager, IT executive, management consultant, and entrepreneur. Their combined experience in project, program, portfolio, and transformation management has been instrumental in shaping Sembly AI's mission to enhance workplace productivity through AI-driven solutions.

Here's what we like: Sembly AI has shown great traction, processing over 60,000 company meetings every month across 100+ countries. The company is at a strong $1.7M ARR with over 1M meetings processed across 1,000 B2B customers. In terms of booked revenue, the company has grown revenue from $22k to $514k in 2023. This growth trajectory suggests early product-market fit and strong future potential. Additionally, the global AI meeting assistants market, with a sizable valuation of $3.1 billion and a robust growth rate of 25.6%, is growing incredibly quickly, and there will be plenty of opportunity for many players to capture market share.

Here's what we don't: Sembly AI faces competition in the AI-driven meeting solutions market from several notable players including Otter.ai, MeetGeek, Notiv, and Chorus.ai, each offering various features for meeting transcription and analysis. Otter.ai stands out as a leading speech-to-text solution, while MeetGeek specializes in automating meeting workflows. Fireflies.ai provides comprehensive meeting assistance with powerful search capabilities, and Avoma offers a full meeting lifecycle assistant. Gong and Chorus.ai focus more on conversation intelligence for sales teams. While Sembly AI differentiates itself with its end-to-end meeting automation, including AI-powered scheduling and integration with various productivity tools, it faces challenges in a crowded market where competitors often specialize in specific aspects of meeting management or cater to particular industries.

STAFF PICKS 🌶️

Bokksu

Bokksu is a Japanese snack and gift company that connects people to Japan’s best treats and makers. Its family of brands includes Bokksu Snack Box, Bokksu Boutique, Bokksu Market, Sugoi Mart, and Bokksu CPG, serving both direct-to-consumer and retail markets. With over 2 million boxes shipped and $100 million in lifetime revenue, Bokksu is expanding its presence in more than 5,000 stores.

• Valuation Cap: $45 million

• Minimum Investment: $150

Kutt

Kutt is a peer-to-peer social betting platform that lets users bet directly against each other on any verifiable event. Operating in the media and entertainment industry, it creates a social network for bettors with features like user profiles, chats, fan groups, and leaderboards. Traditional betting platforms often lack social engagement and involve intermediaries, making direct betting difficult and unreliable. Kutt solves this by providing a secure, pre-funded system that ensures payments while enhancing user interaction.

• Valuation Cap: $9.5 million

• Minimum Investment: $100

PLNT Burger

PLNT Burger is a plant-based fast-food chain with 13 locations across six states, including kiosks in Whole Foods Market stores. The company offers 100% plant-based burgers with zero cholesterol and 30% less fat than traditional meat burgers, catering to health-conscious consumers and those with dietary restrictions. With profitability achieved in 2024, PLNT Burger addresses the growing demand for sustainable and nutritious food options.

• Pre-Money Valuation: $23.2 million

• Minimum Investment: $299

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