KingsCrowd vs Hubtas? Which is better...

A switchup.

I usually review startup investments, but this week is a little different. KingsCrowd is the OG data platform for startup investing, but it finally has some competition. Hubtas is the brainchild of three ex-StartEngine/Benzinga employees - I’m going to review these two platforms side by side and give you my take on which one is better.

• 📚 Investment Research: Deal Sourcing, Ratings, Comparison Tools

• 📊 Portfolio Management: Tracking your investments

• ✅ The Decision: Who offers the best value for the best price?

INVESTMENT RESEARCH

I’m going to break this section into a few different categories and pick a winner for each!

1. Deal Sourcing

Obtaining quality deal-flow is a huge advantage when it comes to startup investing. Both KingsCrowd and Hubtas provide tools for investors to find startups that match their investment criteria.

Each has search filters you can apply to narrow down your selection. They’re both pretty advanced, but Hubtas has an edge here for a few reasons.

Every startup on their platform has a Quant Score, which rates the investment in several categories from 1-5. You can select the importance of certain categories in your search filter - so if you really care about valuation, but aren’t as considered with the founding team, you can set a higher threshold for the valuation score.

KingsCrowd allows you to filter by overall rating, but not by the categories that make up each rating.

Hubtas also lets you build a custom filter that updates you regularly with startup investments that fit that criteria. As an investor, you could set up your filter and receive quality deal-flow without having to do anything. Really cool stuff.

Lastly, Hubtas has an ‘Ideas’ tab that showcases 17 investment categories, like ‘Founders with a previous exit’ or ‘VC-backed’. It’s a nice feature for investors who might not know exactly where they want to start.

Deal Sourcing Winner: HUBTAS

KingsCrowd 0 | Hubtas 1

2. Ratings & Reports

KingsCrowd and Hubtas have very different approaches when it comes to ratings. Both take a blended score from various categories like valuation, founding team, risks, and financial strength.

Where they differ is how each gets rated. KingsCrowd rates each of these categories and their sub-metrics from 1-5. Hubtas gives each sub-metric a pass/fail rating and builds the category score off of the blended

I tend to favor KingsCrowd’s approach a bit more as I don’t believe these parameters should be binary. If a startup just barely misses the mark on one of these, it receives a zero for that Hubtas metric.

KingsCrowd takes their research one step further, they have a team of analysts that generate investment reports for a good amount of the active investments.

I don’t think these writeups go super in-depth (they’re partially generated by AI), but it is helpful to get a quick understanding of some pros/cons. From perusing their site, about 70-80% of startup investments have a rating and investment synopsis.

For the 20% of startup that do not have a rating or investment report, you kind of have nothing to go off of. Hubtas does a better job here - every single platform on its site has a Quant Score, so you’ll always have some performance indicators available.

This section was pretty close but I think KingsCrowd gets the win here because I like their rating approach better and they have more in-depth reports for some startups.

Ratings & Reports Winner: KINGSCROWD

KingsCrowd 1 | Hubtas 1

3. Financials

Along with the ratings, both platforms pull in financial data from the startup’s Form C (the document they file with the SEC).

KingsCrowd has a very limited look into the company’s financials, they really just pull in revenue, COGS, assets, and liabilities. Hubtas goes far deeper as you can see in the screenshots below.

What I really like is they show the past three years of financials (if available) - this gives you a much better view into how the company has been trending.

It’s pretty clear that Hubtas is the winner here.

Financials Winner: HUBTAS

KingsCrowd 1 | Hubtas 2

4. Comparison Tools

KingsCrowd has a nifty feature where users can pull in up to 5 startups and compare their details side by side. It’s interesting that they go into greater financial detail here than on the company’s actual report page.

But this is really helpful to see how a startup stacks against its peers.

On Hubtas, you can’t manually select startups to compare against one another. They have a ‘Comparables’ page where Hubtas pulls in other companies in the same industry.

While it’s nice to see all the data side by side for multiple company peers, I think the industry selection isn’t specific enough. This leads to including companies that aren’t anywhere similar being thrown into the same comparable group. For example, BabyQuip (a baby equipment rental marketplace) gets lumped into the same comparable group as SuperMush (DTC Mushroom Supplements)

KingsCrowd takes the win here, being able to hand-select your comparison set is a clear advantage in my opinion.

Comparison Tools Winner: KINGSCROWD

KingsCrowd 2 | Hubtas 2

I hate ending in a tie for this section but it is what it is! The two platforms each have their strengths and weaknesses. KingsCrowd excels in their Ratings, Reports, and Comparison Tools. Whereas Hubtas has a strong toolkit for sourcing deals and examining financials.

PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT

All your startups. All in one place.

KingsCrowd has another side to its site that I think is incredibly useful. They boast a suite of portfolio management tools to help you keep track of all your investments.

Retail investors have positions in startups across StartEngine, Republic, Wefunder, DealMaker, Issuance, and others. It’s tough to keep track across the various platforms, so KingsCrowd lets you consolidate into their portfolio tool.

Not only can you input your investments, but KingsCrowd will automatically track them and show you any valuation markups they have. Additionally, you can view breakdowns of your portfolio (by industry, deal type, % going to minority founders, etc.)

In the above screenshot of my portfolio, I can see that I have a heavy allocation into financial products (~20%). This makes sense since I am an investor in StartEngine, Wefunder, and Republic!

I personally love the portfolio management tools that KingsCrowd offers, it’s easily my favorite part of their platform (and it’s included in their free tier). In its early stages Hubtas does not currently offer portfolio management tools.

THE DECISION

Lots to consider…

KingsCrowd and Hubtas offer different tools to help you on your startup investing journey, so it really depends on what you’re looking for. Being the incumbent, KingsCrowd has a bit more polished and robust offering.

The portfolio management tool is something they’ve done a really great job with that differentiates their offering.

Given how new Hubtas is, I am impressed with the current state of their offering. I also expect them to rapidly scale features and tools to help investors evaluate deals.

In terms of pricing, an annual premium membership to KingsCrowd comes out to $25/month, while Hubtas is $10/month. I think Hubtas provides slightly more value for their price, but honestly both are fair prices for their offerings.

and one more thing…..

This was not a sponsored post, but I’ve partnered with both KingsCrowd and Hubtas to offer users one FREE month of premium to CROWDSCALE readers. Grab your deals below :)

Thanks for reading!