Frequently asked questions

No. Those filings show who raised money. SERA IQ connects them with the registrations of funds and advisers, placement-firm records from the filings, and economic and market data from the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Treasury, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the CFTC, the Energy Information Administration, the USDA, the World Bank, the IMF and others. The value lies in connecting them: which firms work with comparable raises, how those raises are performing, and how capital is moving around them. None of these agencies is affiliated with SERA IQ or endorses it.

Investor databases are generally built around volume, and many are compiled from websites and online profiles: what firms and people say about themselves.

SERA IQ draws on what they file with regulators. It reads the record first and leaves out what does not fit: each firm shown is one whose own filings fit the raise, with the reason it fits; a sponsor's record is shown as filed, each figure linked to the filing it comes from; and every followed firm, issuer and raise is read again each night. The lists are shorter, and every entry carries its evidence, to the standard an investment committee expects. It is designed for those raising capital and for those evaluating the sponsors who raise it.

A sponsor's record as filed: each offering it has reported, counted once, with the amount sought where the filing states one and the amount sold; the placement firms named as paid to sell and the commission each filing reports; where its adviser reports to regulators as an adviser, its fund families and its own answers on criminal, regulatory and civil matters; and OFAC entries where the record links one to the sponsor, and SEC orders that name an issuer by its CIK. It covers sponsors with an offering filed with the SEC on Form D since 2015, the issuer by its own filings and an adviser through the Form ADV that lists its funds; a sponsor with no such filing has no record in SERA IQ. A followed sponsor's next filing shows on the Watchlist and in the follows email. SERA IQ reports the record; it does not assess, rate or recommend a sponsor or an offering, and a sponsor with nothing linked is not cleared.

No. SERA IQ is a research service. We do not solicit, introduce, recommend or arrange investments, we do not assess or rate sponsors or offerings, we are not a broker-dealer or investment adviser, and we are never paid on a transaction.

SERA IQ was built by principal investors with 25 years of experience in private real estate and private equity, who have directed billions of dollars in transactions throughout the U.S. and raised capital themselves. They built SERA IQ because the research they needed before every raise did not exist in one place, and their story is on the About page.

Public filings with the SEC and official statistics published by U.S. and international agencies, together with market data. Every figure names its source, and every figure from a filing opens the filing it came from.

New SEC filings are added every business day. Each economic and market source shows the date of its latest release, because every source publishes on its own schedule.

Filings are shown as filed and counted with care. A raise filed several times is counted once. Amounts that SERA IQ's review finds no real raise supports are listed and left out of the totals; the How we count page sets out the method. Filers can make mistakes, and SERA IQ shows what they filed without changing it. SERA IQ does not guarantee that any filing or figure is complete or error-free.

SERA IQ provides only what official records state, brought together from several of them. For an adviser: its phone, website and office as it filed them with its regulator. For a placement firm: its registered business address, or the city its filings give. SERA IQ never takes a number from LinkedIn, a web search or a data broker. Such sources attach numbers to the wrong firm often enough to cost a wasted call, or credibility on a first approach. When the record does not state a detail, SERA IQ leaves it out instead of guessing. The details are fewer, and each one comes from the record.

People are treated differently. SERA IQ never shows a person's phone, email or home address. An adviser's leaders appear by name and title, exactly as filed, so the firm's management is known before the first call.

Some do, and SERA IQ identifies which. For every fund, SERA IQ states what its filings show, as one of four evidence levels (High, Medium, Low, Unlikely): whether it invests in other managers' funds or lends, whether its manager raises money for its own projects, or whether the filings do not say. Funds whose filings show they raise only for their own projects are marked Unlikely and ranked below the others of the same strength. Wealth advisers are shown with an estimate, from their registration filings, of the client money they manage in private funds. Placement agents raise money from their investors for comparable offerings, and SERA IQ shows the recent offerings of the raise's size whose filings named them as paid to sell. No filing shows how much uninvested cash a fund holds today, so SERA IQ shows its size and the evidence, and claims no more.

No. No AI model chooses or ranks the firms on a list: each list is built by fixed rules applied to each firm's own SEC filings, and the same raise returns the same result from the same data on the same day. Every firm carries the reason it fits, which can be read against its filings. AI is used to draft and check the weekly and monthly market analysis.

Each week and each month, SERA IQ publishes a short read on the markets behind private capital. It is general market commentary, not investment advice, drafted with the assistance of AI and checked by automated controls. Every figure in it comes from the data on SERA IQ's pages, and each call is graded against the published data once that data is out.

Records search gathers the public record of a firm from several official sources and lays it out as one view: its offerings and its registrations with its regulators, each a click away and dated where the record gives a date. Before a first call or a signed agreement, the counterparty is known from the record itself. Records search also finds the filings that name a person, for business use. It presents the record; it does not screen, vet or clear anyone, and the judgment remains the user's.

Not for screening. SERA IQ may not be used as a factor in deciding anyone's eligibility for credit, insurance, employment, housing or any other purpose covered by the Fair Credit Reporting Act, or in deciding whether to hire, engage or retain a person as an employee, registered representative, agent or independent contractor. SERA IQ is not a consumer reporting agency.

Its own answers to its regulator's questions on criminal, regulatory and civil matters, each yes under its question and dated to its filing. SERA IQ quotes the record and never turns it into a score or a verdict.

No. Where the record links an OFAC entry or an SEC order to a firm, SERA IQ shows it with its source; it is not a sanctions screening service, and a firm without one is not cleared. Sanctions listings and SEC orders

Yes. Every saved raise has its own page with the market around it: rates and credit, its industry, its asset class, and how comparable raises perform, each where the data is available. The page sets out the conditions investors weigh before a pitch, with the raise's best fits beside it.

Yes, on a paid subscription. Shortlists and filing searches export to Excel within the daily and monthly allowances, for use in the subscriber's own business, and every file is marked to the account. Demo accounts cannot export.

Yes. A workspace holds one client's or one mandate's saved raises, followed firms and issuers, and exports, with a private note visible only to the account. An export can be filed in a workspace as it is made.

Yes. An issuer can be followed from any of its filings; its next filing or amendment then appears on the Watchlist and in the email, weekly or each weekday as the subscriber chooses. A person who filed as an issuer cannot be followed.

Yes. The raises you describe and save are not shown to other subscribers and are never sold, and Facto Global LLC and its affiliates do not use them for their own raising, investing or outreach. See our Privacy Policy.

$299 a month. Founder rate: $199 a month instead of $299, held for your first 24 months. That's up to $2,400 saved. It is open to a limited number of early subscribers, for a limited time; after the 24 months, the list price in effect applies, with at least 30 days' notice. No contract: you pay monthly and can cancel any time. The rate stays as long as you stay subscribed. If you cancel and come back later, you subscribe at the list price then in effect.

Continuously. Improvements are released as they are ready, from new data and new views of the record to refinements in how firms are read and ranked. Each one reaches every subscriber when it is released, inside the one plan, at no added cost. This site describes only what SERA IQ does today; features are not announced before they exist. If there is something you would like SERA IQ to do, tell us through Contact: subscribers' suggestions shape what comes next.

No. You can request a demo. Demos are by invitation and not granted automatically: we read every request and choose who receives one. If we choose yours, it runs for 5 days, with limited daily use and no exports. No card is needed for a demo.

Cancel any time from your account; access continues to the end of the paid month. First-time subscribers may request a refund of their first month within 5 calendar days after the day of the charge, if they have not exported any data or chosen to continue past the first days' limits.