11thEstate

11thEstate (also presented as 11th Estate and operating the site 11th.com) runs a platform that identifies and collects money owed to investors from securities class action settlements, shareholder compensations and SEC Fair Funds. Users connect a brokerage account, custodian or portfolio reporting system; the company's engine scans available cases, matches them against the user's holdings and trade history, files the required claim paperwork, and delivers recovered amounts to the client's account via direct deposit.

The platform positions itself against the low participation rate in securities settlements: the company cites figures that up to 97% of individual investors and 66% of institutional investors do not collect entitlements they qualify for, and that complicated paperwork causes up to 50% of claims to be rejected. It publishes a case screener covering securities class actions at various stages — attorney investigation, lead plaintiff submission, tentative settlement and accepting claims — with class periods, security types, trade direction and claim deadlines, and allows users to join claims or collect payouts. Company profile data on the screener is supplied by TradingView.

Alongside its direct-to-consumer product, 11thEstate has been extending into business channels, offering a developer-facing API so fund managers, advisors, broker-dealers, custodians and other financial institutions can integrate its investment recovery workflow.

Founding story

The company was founded by Stan Vick, described as a 20-year investment veteran, after he lost a $1.5 million investment in a biotech stock that became the subject of alleged securities fraud. While researching his own case he found an online group of thousands of investors affected by the same situation, including an 87-year-old retiree who had lost $110,000 in life savings and asked him for help recovering funds; Vick has said this prompted him to build a simpler way for retail investors to recover stock losses.

Business model

11thEstate operates a technology platform that automates the securities-settlement claims process for investors, offered directly to individual investors and, increasingly, to financial institutions and intermediaries through an API-based integration.

Traction

As of the May 2024 seed announcement, the platform had helped investors claim over $100 million across cases including Apple, Google and FTX, and had partnered with TradingView, which the company describes as having 550 million users. The company website cites more than 155,000 investors served, over $250 million in processed claims and a 100% claim acceptance rate.

Latest developments

In May 2024 the company closed a $2 million seed round led by Social Leverage, with Matt Ober, General Partner at Social Leverage, joining the board; proceeds were earmarked for scaling operations and product development. The company said it had begun scaling partnerships with fund managers, advisors, broker-dealers, custodians and financial institutions via a developer-friendly API.