Methodology
Everything on this page is how the feed actually works. The scoring is deterministic and the rules are listed so a subscriber can filter on exactly what they pay for.
What a Form D is
Form D is the notice an issuer files with the SEC within 15 days of the first sale of securities in an offering exempt under Regulation D (Rules 504, 506(b), 506(c)). Private funds relying on Investment Company Act sections 3(c)(1) or 3(c)(7) file it when they begin taking capital; operating companies file it when they close a round. Amendments (D/A) are filed annually while an offering continues and when key facts change.
Source data
Public SEC EDGAR. New filings: the EDGAR daily form index, read after the 10pm ET filing cutoff and processed overnight. History: the SEC's quarterly Form D data sets (currently loaded from Q4 2024 onward). Nothing is sourced from private databases or scraped from issuers' sites. EDGAR data is public domain; we link every record to its source filing.
Classification
Each filing becomes exactly one kind:
- Fund launch — original Form D by a pooled investment fund that is not an SPV, feeder or offshore sleeve.
- Fund raise update — D/A by a pooled fund (amount sold, investor count).
- SPV / series — "a Series of …" vehicles (AngelList, Sydecar), platform series, syndicates, co-invest vehicles. Kept in the data, scored low, hidden from the default feed.
- Company raise / update — operating companies (every industry group except real estate).
- Real-estate raise / update — commercial, residential, REIT and other real-estate industry groups.
Fund strategy comes from the filing's fund type (venture, private equity, hedge fund) and, for "other investment fund", from the entity name (credit, real estate, infrastructure, secondaries, digital assets, fund of funds, opportunistic).
The score (0–100)
Fund launches start at 55. Plus: 3(c)(7) qualified-purchaser fund +12 · offering $25–100M +8, $100–500M +15, $500M+ +20, under $5M −10 · first sale yet to occur +10 · first filing by this entity +5 · first-time manager +10 · hedge fund or digital assets (needs a prime broker) +5. Minus: feeder/access vehicle −20 · offshore/parallel/master sleeve −10. Indefinite offerings earn no size bonus.
Fund updates start at 22, with half the size bonus, +10 when $100M+ has been sold, +5 for 3(c)(7). Company raises start at 35: $50M+ +20, $10M+ +12, $2M+ +5, under $500K −10, first raise on EDGAR +5, placement agent +5. Real-estate raises start at 30 plus the size bonus and +5 for a placement agent. SPVs score 8.
The default feed floor is 40. 70 and above is roughly "call this week".
First-time manager and new issuer
New issuer: the filing entity's CIK has no earlier Form D on EDGAR (checked against the SEC submissions API). First-time manager: none of the related persons on a fund launch appear on an earlier Form D for a different issuer in our two-year history. Common names bias this toward "not first-time", which is the conservative direction.
Personas
Each kind maps to the firms that sell to that issuer at that moment. Fund launches: Fund administrator; Fund audit & tax; Fund-formation counsel; Custodian / prime broker; Compliance consultant / RIA registration; Placement agent / capital introduction. Company raises: Executive & technical recruiting; B2B software & services sales; Commercial banking / treasury; D&O and management-liability insurance; Outsourced accounting / CFO. Real estate: Real-estate lending; Title, escrow & 1031 services; Property management.
The lead card
The headline, summary, sponsor name, strategy tags and per-persona pitch hooks are generated by a language model from the parsed filing fields only, under rules that forbid inventing amounts, people, rounds or sectors. The one inference it is allowed is the sponsor brand behind a fund entity ("8VC DSS III, L.P." → 8VC), with a stated confidence. The model never decides what a filing is or how it scores.
Timing and delays
Filings appear on the site and in paid digests the morning after they reach EDGAR (digest at 8:30am ET). The free sample is delayed one week and limited to five fund launches.
Limitations
- Form D is a notice, not a prospectus: offering amounts are what the issuer chose to state, "Indefinite" is common, and amounts sold lag reality until the next amendment.
- Issuers can file late or not at all; some funds rely on other exemptions and never appear.
- Contact details are the filing's: a phone number and a business address, sometimes a law firm's. We do not provide email addresses.
- Lead cards can be wrong in the ways language models are wrong. The filing fields and the EDGAR link are always alongside so you can verify in seconds.
What this is not
Not investment, legal or tax advice, and not a statement about the quality of any fund or company. It is a business-development data product built on public records.