Participant: why you received an invitation

What Kapitable is, who asked you to use it, and what will be expected of you — including the two things the platform will never ask for.

Overview

You have received an email from a platform you may never have heard of, asking for your identity document, your bank details and your signature on legal documents. It is reasonable to be cautious about that. This lesson answers three questions, in order: who is asking, why, and what is expected of you.

Who is asking

You are taking part in a transaction on a company's share capital — a subscription, a transfer of shares, or coming into the capital as part of an investment. The team running that transaction invited you: the company itself, its advisers, or the investor working with it.

Kapitable is the platform they use to run the transaction. It is published by SAS Stand with Founders. Kapitable is the tool, not the party making the request.

If you want to be sure, confirm it with the person who contacted you — and set your anti-phishing phrase (B1.11), which gives you a way to check every email you receive afterwards.

Why a platform rather than emails

A transaction of this kind involves legal documents, regulatory identity checks and movements of funds, often for dozens of participants at once. Run by email, that means attachments circulating, versions diverging and sensitive information scattered.

The platform replaces that with a single place: you see what is being asked, you provide it once, and your documents stay available to you.

What will be expected of you

Depending on the transaction, some or all of:

a KYC check — identity document and proof of address
your bank details, if funds are to be paid to you
electronic signature of legal documents
a payment by bank transfer, if you are subscribing

Each request appears as a task on your dashboard. Nothing is asked of you all at once, and nothing is sent without the transaction team deciding to send it.

Two things Kapitable will never ask you for

A card number.
Permission to debit your account.

If there is a payment, you make it yourself, by transfer, from your own bank.

B1.2 — Participant: creating your account and signing in · getting started
B1.3 — Participant: your dashboard · where your tasks appear
B1.11 — Participant: your anti-phishing phrase · how to tell a genuine email from a fake one
B1.4 — Participant: completing your KYC check · the most common first task