Finlete Review 2026: What You Actually Own When You Buy a Player
Finlete sells retail investors a class of preferred stock tied to one minor-league baseball player's future major-league earnings, for $300 and up, with 65.8% to 69.4% of each raise reaching the athlete and the rest going to the parent and the portal. Sixteen offerings have raised $804,739 since 2024, two were withdrawn without selling anything, and the largest of them, tied to Emmanuel Clase, has had its underlying contract written down to zero.
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What the data actually shows - TL;DR
Finlete is doing something genuinely new and disclosing it in unusual detail: the offering circulars state the per-share entitlement, the fee split and the break-even mechanics with more precision than most Reg CF issuers manage. The structure is also worse for the investor than the marketing implies, in four specific ways.
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A third of every dollar never reaches the athlete, and the parent's cut rose from 20% to 25.7% between the 2025 and 2026 offerings. Holders then receive only up to 67.5% of what the company collects, so on the Avila class the athlete would have to earn roughly $16.2M to $21.6M of major-league money to return the class's original capital in nominal terms, before the further deductions the dividend clause permits and with no discounting for a 25-year wait. Nothing is owed at all unless the athlete is Selected, a defined term that broadly means reaching the majors or a top Asian league, so a full career in the minors pays zero.
And the flagship result so far is a write-off: the Emmanuel Clase class raised $315,924, the company put $237,258 into his agreement, and that contract carried $0 at December 31, 2025. The annual report gives no cause. The public record supplies one: Clase was placed on leave by Major League Baseball on July 28, 2025, thirteen days after the offering closed, and a federal indictment charging four felony counts over an alleged pitch-rigging betting scheme was unsealed on November 9, 2025.
He has pleaded not guilty and goes to trial on November 2, 2026. The site says 'No loans. No equity.' Every offering sells preferred stock.
The carrying value of the Emmanuel Clase athlete agreement at December 31, 2025, fully impaired, per the Future Earning Contracts note in the FY2025 annual report. Investors paid $315,924 into that class, the largest raise Finlete has closed, and the company had put $237,258 of it into the agreement. The class had already received $6,762 of dividends, the only distribution Finlete has ever disclosed.
The filing states the impairment and gives no cause. Clase has been on leave since July 28, 2025, is not on the Guardians' 2026 roster and will not be paid his scheduled 2026 salary, and the class's entitlement is a percentage of his baseball earnings.
The share of each maximum raise that actually reaches the athlete, from the Use of Proceeds table in each circular. The rest is a management fee to the parent, 20.0% on the 2025 offerings and 25.2% to 25.7% on the 2026 ones, plus 8.5% and a $1,000 activation fee to DealMaker Securities. The athlete's share fell as the parent's rose.
The share of what the company collects that Padilla and Avila holders are entitled to, less taxes and amounts subject to repayment, per the Dividend Rights clause. The other 32.5% is not allocated to that class, before the further deductions the clause specifies; the filings do not establish that all of it becomes profit to Finlete. The Mejia class is more generous at 82.50%; the Pitcher Bundle is 22.5% per athlete on four of six and less on the other two.
Realized capital across all sixteen offerings since February 2024, reconciled to the Form C-U series. The distribution is a barbell, not a business ramping: two offerings sold nothing and were withdrawn, three closed between $10,118 and $10,669, and two account for 60% of everything ever raised, at $315,924 and $169,403. The $315,924 one is the Clase class, whose contract is now carried at zero.
The FY2025 net loss of the issuing company, against $12,811 of revenue, $8,631 of cash and one employee. Impairment and amortisation of athlete contracts account for most of it: the $171,232 impairment is about 54% of the net loss on its own, and with $82,911 of amortisation the two total $254,143, about 80%. Running the business cost $74,799. The audit opinion contains a substantial-doubt-about-going-concern paragraph, and the company reports a working capital deficit of $52,301.
Offerings are grouped by SEC file number (020-NNNNN), which an offering's whole Form C family shares, so an amendment or progress update is never counted as a separate raise. Realized capital is the largest reported progress amount per offering, except where a closing update reports less, in which case the close governs. Live subscription levels are from the operator's own dashboard on September 20, 2026 and are platform-reported. Per-share entitlements, fee splits and agreement terms are quoted from the offering circulars and, for the Athlete Agreement, read from the filed image of Exhibit E.
Quick Verdict
Is this platform right for you?
Finlete is the most interesting structure AltStreet has reviewed this year and one of the worst deals in it. The idea, letting a fan buy a contractual slice of a prospect's future major-league earnings for $300, is real, legal and disclosed with unusual precision.
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The execution takes roughly a third of every dollar before the athlete sees it, leaves another 32.5% of whatever comes back unallocated to the class, requires an event that most minor leaguers never reach, and has so far produced one distribution of $6,762 and one contract marked down to zero. Buy it the way you buy a jersey, with money you have written off, or do not buy it.
Best for
- Baseball fans who want a stake in a specific prospect's career and can treat $300 as spent.
- Readers who want to understand a genuinely new retail structure and are willing to read the offering circular in full before deciding.
Avoid if
- You need income, or any distribution at all on a schedule.
- You might need the money back inside 25 years.
- You are looking for sports exposure as an asset class rather than a bet on one named individual.
- You are relying on the site's return calculator or its 'No loans. No equity.' framing rather than the filings.
Top strengths
- Offering circulars that state the per-share entitlement, the fee split and the break-even mechanics explicitly, with the Athlete Agreement filed as an exhibit.
- Audited financial statements and Form C-AR annual reports filed on time for both years, which many Reg CF issuers fail to do.
- Tax reporting on a 1099-DIV rather than a K-1, with no state filings and no partnership reporting.
- Share prices that vary materially by athlete, from $0.76 to $1.46 for an identical per-share entitlement, which may reflect differences in perceived stage and risk.
- No SEC or FINRA enforcement action located against either entity or its principals within the scan AltStreet ran across 33,872 actions on file.
Key limitations
- Roughly a third of every dollar raised never reaches the athlete, and the parent's cut rose from 20.0% to 25.7% in a year.
- The class receives only up to 67.5% of what the company collects, putting the Avila gross payback threshold at $16.2M to $21.6M of major-league earnings, undiscounted.
- The flagship class, Clase at $315,924 raised, has its underlying contract carried at $0 after the athlete was placed on leave and indicted, and the annual report gives no cause.
- The issuer has $8,631 of cash, one employee, a $52,301 working capital deficit and a substantial-doubt paragraph.
- No secondary market, no redemption, and a 25-year term.
- The homepage says 'No loans. No equity.' while every offering sells preferred stock, and the return calculator shows the same default answer on every athlete page.
Compare Before Deciding
Where Finlete fits against alternatives
Use these hooks to pressure-test whether this is the right platform, or whether a nearby alternative matches the job better.
How this compares to Royalty Exchange Review
Royalty Exchange Review
The contrast case in the same category: an auction marketplace transferring existing, measurable royalty income at a stated multiple, rather than selling a contingent claim on income that does not yet exist.
How this compares to DealMaker Review
DealMaker Review
The registered broker-dealer acting as Reg CF intermediary on every Finlete offering, reviewed as infrastructure. It is paid an 8.5% commission and is not the issuer.
How this compares to Republic Review
Republic Review
A general Reg CF portal, useful for comparing how a multi-issuer marketplace differs from a platform that only sells its own deals.
Quick Answers
What most investors want to know first
The highest-signal facts first: minimums, liquidity reality, K-1 timing, and whether distributions are actually part of the experience.
Liquidity
There is none. Treat any purchase as capital committed for the life of the agreement, with the realistic possibility that it returns nothing at all.
K-1 Timing
Not applicable. The issuer is a C corporation, so holders receive a Form 1099-DIV rather than a Schedule K-1, and only in a year a dividend is actually paid.
Distributions
Not fixed in the filings. The company declares when it has collected, and the agreement's payment mechanics depend on the athlete's own contract cycle.
Overview
Platform Overview
A concise read on what the platform is, how the structure works, and where the practical friction shows up for real investors.
Finlete Funding, Inc. (Delaware, incorporated December 19, 2023, CIK 0002010670) is an operating subsidiary of Finlete, Inc. (Delaware, incorporated January 25, 2021, CIK 0001967761), which the circulars describe as providing 'administrative support and an online platform' and which owns all of the subsidiary's common stock. The subsidiary signs an Athlete Agreement with a professional baseball player: it pays the athlete up to a stated amount, tendered in installments of $1.00 each at Finlete's discretion, and each dollar buys 0.00001% of that athlete's pre-tax future professional baseball earnings for 25 years, capped at a stated percentage. It then sells a separate designated class of preferred stock per athlete under Regulation CF through DealMaker Securities LLC (CIK 0001872856, SEC file number 008-70756, CRD 315324), a registered broker-dealer, and holders of that class receive up to a stated share of what the company collects under that one agreement.
Nothing is owed unless the athlete is 'Selected', defined as signing a Major League Uniform Player's Contract and meeting one of four conditions, or signing in Japan's NPB, Korea's KBO or the Chinese Professional Baseball League. Minimums run from $300.20 to $1,000,000 depending on the offering; the common retail entry is about $300. Investors receive a 1099-DIV rather than a K-1, because they hold stock in a C corporation. There is no secondary market and Reg CF resale restrictions apply for one year.
Its final progress update reported $80,000 sold, which is the figure AltStreet's ledger carries; the FY2024 audited statements show $78,288 for that class, and no filing explains the $1,712 difference. Fifteen more offerings followed. Across all sixteen, grouped by SEC file number, $804,739 has been realized.
Nine have closed, two were withdrawn in March 2026 having sold nothing, and five were open when this review was written: Luinder Avila at 39.6% of a $109,500 maximum, Yairo Padilla at 17.9% of $81,000, Esteban Mejia at 17.3% of $104,500, Pitcher Bundle 1 at 12.8% of $215,000, and Christian Zazueta. The economics are consistent across offerings and the fees are not: the athlete receives 65.79% to 69.44% of the raise, the parent takes 20.0% on the 2025 offerings and 25.2% to 25.7% on the 2026 ones, and DealMaker takes 8.5% plus $1,000. The issuing company reported $12,811 of revenue and a $316,131 net loss for FY2025 with a substantial-doubt-about-going-concern paragraph in its audit opinion, and its largest athlete contract, Emmanuel Clase's, is carried at zero.
The parent was simultaneously selling a SAFE at an $18,000,000 cap. What an investor is buying is a junior claim, inside a loss-making one-employee subsidiary, on a defined slice of one athlete's major-league earnings, payable only if he reaches the majors, for 25 years, with no way out.
Founded & Structure
Finlete, Inc. (Delaware, incorporated January 25, 2021, CIK 0001967761) operates the platform and owns all the common stock of Finlete Funding, Inc. (Delaware, incorporated December 19, 2023, CIK 0002010670), which signs the Athlete Agreements and issues a designated class of preferred stock per athlete. George Robert Connolly is Chief Executive Officer and the sole director of the subsidiary and holds 51.02% of the parent; Maxwell Richmond Eisenberg holds 34.01% of the parent and is not an officer or director of the subsidiary. Preferred holders have no voting rights. HQ 100 Park Plaza, Unit 318, San Diego, California. One employee at the subsidiary, two at the parent.
Platform Scale
Filed: sixteen Regulation CF offerings since February 2024, of which nine have closed, two were withdrawn and five were open at September 21, 2026. Realized capital $804,738.77, reconciled to the Form C-U series. Platform-reported: the homepage claims $1.0M raised for athletes, 1,183 fan investments, a $1,349 average investment, a 26.9% repeat rate, 12 athletes and 4,000+ active users. AltStreet's $804,738.77 counts closed offerings only, so it is not directly comparable. Adding the platform-reported subscriptions on the four live offerings that display one ($43,390 Avila, $27,486 Pitcher Bundle 1, $18,102 Mejia, $14,508 Padilla, with Zazueta not shown) gives about $908,000, and the $1.0M headline is broadly consistent with that once Zazueta and rounding are allowed for. The figure that does not sit with the others is the average: if $1,349 describes the same 1,183 investments, they imply about $1.6M.
Fee Structure
Per the Use of Proceeds table in each circular, at the maximum raise: athlete 69.44% / management fee 20.0% / intermediary 8.5% / offering expenses 2.06% (Padilla); 68.49% / 20.0% / 8.5% / 3.01% (Avila); 65.79% / 25.71% / 8.50% (Mejia); 66.18% / 25.32% / 8.50% (Zazueta); 66.28% / 25.22% / 8.50% (Pitcher Bundle 1). The management fee is paid to Finlete, Inc. and the 8.5% commission to DealMaker Securities LLC, which also charges a $1,000 activation fee. Holders then receive up to 67.50% (Padilla, Avila) or 82.50% (Mejia) of what the company collects.
Investor Terms
Preferred stock, one designated class per athlete, no voting rights. Minimum investment $300.20 to $300.76 on the single-athlete offerings and $860.00 on Pitcher Bundle 1. Share prices $0.76 to $1.46 on the live single-athlete classes. Term 25 years from the agreement's effective date. Dividends are annual and contingent: nothing is payable unless the athlete is Selected. Tax reporting is a 1099-DIV, not a K-1, because the issuer is a C corporation. No secondary market; Reg CF resale restrictions apply for one year.
Audit & Compliance
Audited by dbbmckennon for the 2023 stub period and by Artesian CPA, LLC for FY2024 and FY2025. The FY2025 opinion carries a Substantial Doubt About the Company's Ability to Continue as a Going Concern paragraph. The parent's own financial statements are reviewed, not audited, as Regulation CF permits at its raise level. AltStreet's legal and enforcement scan found no SEC or FINRA action against either entity or its principals across 33,872 actions on file, and no third-party mentions in EDGAR full-text search.
Investor Operations
The practical questions investors actually care about: when tax documents arrive, how cash distributions work, and whether capital can be exited before the underlying asset is sold.
Tax Documents
K-1 Timing
What to expect
Not applicable. The issuer is a C corporation, so holders receive a Form 1099-DIV rather than a Schedule K-1, and only in a year a dividend is actually paid.
Cash Flow
Distributions
Frequency
Annual, and contingent. The Dividend Rights clause provides for an annual dividend out of Player Payments received, and no payment is due unless the athlete is Selected.
Timing
Not fixed in the filings. The company declares when it has collected, and the agreement's payment mechanics depend on the athlete's own contract cycle.
Consistency
One class has ever been paid. The FY2025 equity statement shows $6,762 of dividends against the Clase class and $1,528 still payable, and that is the class whose underlying contract is now carried at zero. No other class has a disclosed distribution.
Liquidity
Exit Reality
Holding period
Reg CF resale restrictions for one year, and in practical terms permanent: the underlying agreement runs 25 years and there is no redemption right.
Exit options
- No secondary market. The filings describe no trading venue, no matching service and no transfer agent process for resale.
- No redemption or repurchase right. Nothing in the circulars obliges the company to buy a holder out at any price.
- A private transfer after the one-year restriction is theoretically permitted and has no disclosed mechanism, no pricing reference and no observed volume.
Secondary market
There is none. Treat any purchase as capital committed for the life of the agreement, with the realistic possibility that it returns nothing at all.
Investment Structures
Athlete-designated preferred stock (the standard single-athlete class)
A non-voting class of preferred stock in Finlete Funding, Inc., designated for one athlete. Each share is stated in the circular to be 'effectively entitled to 0.000009%' of that athlete's pre-tax future professional baseball earnings, and the class as a whole to 'up to' a stated share of what the company actually collects: 67.50% for Yairo Padilla and Luinder Avila, 82.50% for Esteban Mejia. Prices run $0.76 to $1.46 per share and minimums about $300.
Dividends are payable annually and only if the athlete is Selected. There is no maturity, no redemption right and no secondary market; the underlying agreement runs 25 years.
The Athlete Agreement that sits underneath it
Between Finlete Funding and the individual player. Section 2.01 commits the company to pay up to a stated maximum, for Avila $100,000, in exchange for up to a stated percentage, for Avila 1%, of pre-tax professional baseball earnings for 25 years. Section 2.02 makes the funding discretionary and incremental: each $1.00 installment buys 0.00001% of earnings, the company 'in its discretion, may fund' and 'does not guaranty or warranty its ability to successfully raise sufficient capital'.
Payment is owed only if the athlete is Selected, meaning a Major League Uniform Player's Contract plus one of four conditions, or a contract with NPB, the KBO or the Chinese Professional Baseball League. Disputes go to binding individual arbitration.
Multi-athlete bundle (Pitcher Bundle 1)
One preferred class attached to six pitchers rather than one, at unequal rates: 22.5% of the Player Payments for four of them and 11.25% and 7.5% for the other two. The maximum raise is $215,000 and the stated minimum investment is $860.00, roughly triple the single-athlete offerings. Of the raise, 66.28% is allocated to the athletes, 25.22% is the management fee and 8.50% goes to DealMaker.
The per-athlete allocation runs from about $11,250 to about $38,750, so the largest exposure in the bundle is about 3.4 times the smallest. Finlete's own site displayed the bundle with the Invest Now control disabled and no deal page behind it at the September 2026 capture.
Parent-level SAFE (a different security, in a different company)
Finlete, Inc., the parent, filed its own Regulation CF offering on July 21, 2026 selling a Simple Agreement for Future Equity at an $18,000,000 post-money valuation cap. This is equity exposure to the operating business that collects the management fee, not to any athlete. Its financial statements are reviewed rather than audited and it reported a $922,579 net loss and a $1,908,687 accumulated deficit. Investors should not confuse the two: buying an athlete class gives no claim on the parent, and buying the SAFE gives no claim on any athlete.
Risk
Risk Structure
This is where the marketplace pitch gives way to the actual operating reality: delayed exits, limited disclosure, fee drag, and path-dependent outcomes.
Nothing is owed unless the athlete is Selected
The Athlete Agreement's payment obligation is conditional on the athlete signing a Major League Uniform Player's Contract and satisfying one of four further conditions, or signing with Japan's NPB, Korea's KBO or the Chinese Professional Baseball League. Most minor-league players never do. A long and successful minor-league career pays the class nothing, and the class has no recourse, no maturity and no residual claim on anything else.
Three layers of leakage between the athlete's paycheck and the investor
The class receives up to 67.50% (Padilla, Avila) or 82.50% (Mejia) of what the company collects. The company collects a percentage set by how much it actually funded, not by the headline maximum. And the raise itself loses 30.6% to 34.2% to the management fee and the portal before any of it reaches the athlete. The gross nominal payback threshold for Avila is roughly $16.2M to $21.6M of major-league earnings over 25 years, before the further deductions the dividend clause permits and undiscounted.
The issuer is small, loss-making and carries a going-concern paragraph
FY2025: $206,439 total assets, $8,631 of it cash, $70,362 of current liabilities including $45,088 owed to the parent, $12,811 of revenue, a $316,131 net loss, one employee and a $52,301 working capital deficit. Artesian CPA's opinion states substantial doubt about the ability to continue as a going concern. The entity that must survive to administer a 25-year payment stream is the entity the auditor has flagged.
The first real test has been a full write-off
The Emmanuel Clase agreement, $237,258 of capitalized cost against a $315,924 raise, was carried at $0 at December 31, 2025. That single impairment plus $82,911 of amortisation drove the year's loss. This is the largest class Finlete has sold and the closest thing to a track record it has.
The failure mode is also not one the circulars prepare investors for: they warn about injury, underperformance and never reaching the majors, and what actually zeroed the asset was a criminal case. Clase has been on leave since July 28, 2025 and was indicted on November 9, 2025 on four felony counts he denies, with trial set for November 2, 2026.
Regulation CF gives a closed offering no event-driven disclosure
Reg CF requires a Form C/A for material changes only while an offering is open. Once it closes, the annual Form C-AR is the only scheduled disclosure, and there is no Reg CF equivalent of the Form 1-U that Regulation A issuers must file within four business days of a specified material event. The Clase class shows the cost.
Its holders went from an August 19, 2025 progress update announcing a successful close to an April 24, 2026 annual report carrying the asset at zero, 248 days later, with nothing in between and no explanation at either end. The absence of an interim SEC filing would not by itself depart from Reg CF's scheduled post-offering disclosure framework, which is a point about this filing regime and not a conclusion about any other obligation.
No liquidity by design, for a term most investors will not hold through
No secondary market exists, the filings describe no transfer mechanism, and Reg CF resale restrictions apply for the first year regardless. The agreement runs 25 years from its effective date. There is no redemption, no put and no stated wind-down. An investor who changes their mind has no exit.
Concentration is total and unhedged
Each class is one person. Injury, suspension, release, retirement, visa or immigration problems, or simply not being good enough, each independently zeroes the class. The Pitcher Bundle spreads across six, but at unequal weights and inside the same issuer, so it diversifies the athlete risk and not the platform risk.
Related-party economics with no disclosed cap
The management fee, 20.0% on the 2025 offerings and 25.2% to 25.7% on the 2026 ones, is paid to the parent, which is controlled by the issuer's sole director. The circulars list categories the fee covers and disclose no schedule, no cap and no independent review. The issuer also owed the parent $45,088 at year end.
ASRisk signals to watch
- Any further impairment in the Future Earning Contracts note of the next Form C-AR, or a second class written to zero.
- The Clase trial, set for November 2, 2026 in the Eastern District of New York, and whether the FY2026 annual report says anything about the class beyond the carrying value.
- Whether the going-concern paragraph persists in the FY2026 opinion, and whether the intercompany balance owed to the parent keeps growing.
- The management fee on the next offering. It moved from 20.0% to 25.7% in one year, and the athlete's share moved down by the same amount.
- Whether any live class ever declares a dividend, and whether the company publishes per-class distribution history rather than a single equity-statement line.
- More withdrawn offerings. Two were pulled without a single sale, and three more closed barely above $10,000.
- Whether the return calculator on the athlete pages is corrected to use each athlete's own share price rather than a single hard-wired default.
- Any change in the 'No loans. No equity.' language on the homepage, which contradicts every offering the company has sold.
Regulatory & Legal Posture
Security Status
Securities, offered under an exemption rather than registered. Every offering is preferred stock sold under Section 4(a)(6) of the Securities Act using Form C, which exempts the offering from Securities Act registration rather than effecting a registration. There is no ambiguity about whether these are securities; the filings say so on the cover page. What investors do not get is the disclosure and review that registration would bring.
Finlete Funding, Inc. files Form C under Section 4(a)(6) of the Securities Act, sells through DealMaker Securities LLC, and files Form C-U progress updates and Form C-AR annual reports. Its parent files separately. The Athlete Agreement itself is a private contract between the company and the player and is not a security sold to investors; investors hold stock in the company that owns the agreement.
- Regulation CF caps what an individual may invest across all Reg CF offerings in a 12-month period based on income and net worth, and the portal enforces it.
- Reg CF offerings require audited or reviewed financials depending on size. Finlete Funding's statements are audited, by dbbmckennon for the 2023 stub period and Artesian CPA, LLC since. The parent's own offering is supported by reviewed statements.
- The issuer has filed its Form C-AR annual reports on time for FY2024 and FY2025, which a material share of Reg CF issuers do not.
- Two offerings were withdrawn by Form C-W rather than left to lapse, which is the cleaner way to end an unsold offering.
Disclosure Quality
Better than most Reg CF issuers on structure and worse than most on outcome. The circulars state the per-share entitlement, the funding mechanics, the fee split and the break-even arithmetic explicitly, and the Athlete Agreement is filed as an exhibit. Against that, the single most consequential fact in the record, that the Clase contract is carried at zero, appears only as a parenthetical in a footnote, and the homepage's 'No loans. No equity.' contradicts the securities the company actually sells.
Custody Model
Investor funds are handled by DealMaker Securities LLC as the Reg CF intermediary and by its escrow arrangements, not by Finlete. Once an offering closes, the investor's position is a book-entry class of preferred stock in Finlete Funding, Inc., recorded by the company and its transfer agent. There is no custodial account holding an asset on the investor's behalf; the asset is the contract the company owns.
Regulatory Backing
Regulation CF disclosure obligations and the intermediary's own conduct obligations apply. There is no SIPC protection, no FDIC insurance and no state-guaranty backstop. Reg CF resale restrictions apply for one year. AltStreet's legal and enforcement scan across 33,872 SEC and FINRA actions found nothing against Finlete, Inc., Finlete Funding, Inc. or their principals, and EDGAR full-text search returned no third-party mentions.
Tax Treatment
Reporting
Form 1099-DIV
Because the issuer is a C corporation and the instrument is preferred stock, holders receive a 1099-DIV in any year a dividend is actually paid, not a Schedule K-1. In a year with no dividend, which is every year so far for every class except Clase, there is nothing to report. This is materially simpler than the K-1 regime on nearly every fractional platform AltStreet covers.
Income Character
Dividend income on preferred stock
Distributions are dividends declared by the board of Finlete Funding, Inc. out of what it collects under the relevant Athlete Agreement, net of taxes and amounts subject to repayment. Whether a given distribution is a qualified dividend, an ordinary dividend or a return of capital depends on the company's earnings and profits in that year, which its filings do not break out per class. A company reporting a $316,131 net loss has little or no current earnings and profits, which makes return-of-capital treatment a live possibility.
Limitation
The C-corporation structure can create two levels of tax: once at the issuer on what it collects, and again at the investor on the dividend. Whether corporate tax is actually due in a given year depends on taxable income, deductions and any carried-forward losses, and this issuer is loss-making with an accumulated deficit, so the entity-level layer may be deferred rather than absent. A pass-through structure would not have the layer at all. The circulars make no tax claims beyond noting the 1099-DIV.
Special Considerations
- The possible double layer is the point to understand: corporate tax at Finlete Funding if it has taxable income, then dividend tax at the holder. The dividend share is applied to amounts already net of taxes withheld, per the Dividend Rights language.
- Return-of-capital treatment reduces basis rather than creating current income, and because the issuer runs at a loss this is a realistic outcome for early distributions. Holders should not assume qualified-dividend rates.
- There is no depreciation, depletion or other shelter in the structure. The asset is a contract right, amortized at the company level, and that amortisation does not pass through to the holder.
- AltStreet is not a tax adviser and the filings contain no tax opinion. Anyone holding a material position should confirm the character of any distribution with their own adviser in the year it is received.
Account Suitability
Taxable
Workable, and the simplest of the options, because a 1099-DIV needs no K-1 wait and no state filings. The cost is that any distribution may be taxed after the company has already paid corporate tax on the same money, depending on its taxable position that year.
Roth IRA
Possible through a self-directed IRA custodian, and the tax shelter is largely wasted here. The expected distribution stream is zero in most years and contingent in all of them, so there is little income to shelter, while the custodian's annual fee is certain and the 25-year lock is real.
Traditional IRA
Same mechanics as the Roth and the same objection. A 25-year illiquid holding inside an account that will face required minimum distributions is a planning problem, because the position cannot be sold to meet one.
HSA
Not appropriate. An HSA should hold liquid assets against near-term medical costs, and this is the least liquid instrument AltStreet covers.
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AltStreet Data Layer
What the data actually shows
Sixteen offerings grouped by SEC file number, nine closed, two withdrawn and five live, reconciled against the Form C-U series and the two audited annual reports. The pattern in the data is concentration at both ends: almost nothing raised on most offerings, and most of the money in two classes, one of which is now carried at zero.
Two classes hold 60% of everything ever raised
Of $804,738.77 realized across sixteen offerings, $315,924 came from one (file number 020-34769, the Clase class) and $169,402.82 from another (020-36394). The remaining seven closed offerings total $319,411.95 between them, and three of those closed between $10,118 and $10,669.
What this means
The platform's realized capital is not a growth curve, it is two successful raises and a long tail that barely clears the minimum. An investor assessing whether Finlete can sustain a 25-year administration obligation should weigh that the book is thin and concentrated.
The largest class ever sold is carried at zero
The Clase offering raised $315,924, the company capitalized $237,258 of it as an athlete contract, and the FY2025 Future Earning Contracts note records that contract fully impaired to $0 carrying value at December 31, 2025. The class had received $6,762 of dividends before that.
What this means
This is the clearest marked adverse outcome in the platform's history and the cause is not in the filings. A $0 carrying value is an accounting measurement: nothing filed establishes that the agreement terminated, that the class's rights were extinguished, or that its 25-year term ended. The athlete has been on leave since July 2025 and faces federal charges he denies, and the class is entitled to a percentage of baseball earnings he is not currently receiving. Anyone pricing a live class should treat a full loss as an observed outcome rather than a theoretical one, and should note that the risk that produced it is not among the risks the circulars emphasize.
Two offerings were withdrawn without a single sale
File numbers 020-36119 ($73,000 maximum) and 020-36252 ($109,500 maximum) were withdrawn by Form C-W with no sales reported. 020-36252 carried the same $109,500 maximum as the Avila offering filed the same day.
What this means
Demand is not uniform across athletes, and a live offering carries real risk of never closing. An investor whose subscription sits in an offering that is later withdrawn gets their money back and loses the position they wanted.
One closed offering raised more than its stated maximum
File number 020-36009 reports $101,713.04 realized against a $68,000 maximum on its Form C cover. AltStreet's ledger carries both figures as filed and no filing in that family reconciles them.
What this means
Either the offering was amended upward without the cover figure being restated in the record we hold, or one of the two numbers is wrong. Confirm the maximum against the current circular rather than the cover page before relying on a percentage-subscribed figure.
The first offering's reported and audited amounts differ by $1,712
File number 020-33708, the Echedry Vargas class, reported $80,000 sold in its closing progress update. The FY2024 audited statements show $78,288 for that class. No filing explains the difference.
What this means
Progress-update figures are gross and unaudited. Where the two disagree the audited statement is the better number, and a 2.1% gap on the first offering is worth carrying forward as a caution on every unaudited figure the platform publishes.
The parent takes more of each raise than it used to
The management fee paid to Finlete, Inc. was 20.0% on both 2025 offerings in the live book and is 25.22% to 25.71% on all three 2026 offerings. The athlete's share fell from 69.44% and 68.49% to a range of 65.79% to 66.28%.
What this means
The fee is charged on money raised, not on athletes succeeding, and it is moving in the wrong direction for investors. Check the Use of Proceeds table on the specific offering rather than assuming the terms match an earlier one.
Only one distribution has ever been made
Across two audited years and sixteen offerings, the equity statement discloses $6,762 of dividends paid, all on the Clase class, with $1,528 still payable. No other class has a disclosed distribution.
What this means
The instrument has produced essentially no income to date. Treat any projection of recurring distributions as a model, not a record.
The issuer's cash fell as its obligations grew
Cash on hand went from $20,503 at December 31, 2024 to $8,631 at December 31, 2025, while total assets rose from $171,458 to $206,439 as more athlete contracts were capitalized. Current liabilities at the end of FY2025 were $70,362, including $45,088 owed to the parent.
What this means
The company is converting cash into long-dated contract assets while its short-term obligations, including intercompany ones, exceed its liquid resources. The substantial-doubt paragraph follows directly from that.
Data as of 2026-09-21 . AltStreet platform_exits database . Confidence level 4
Full datasetDecision Fit
Investor Fit
Who this works for, who it does not, and what level of patience and complexity tolerance the platform really demands.
Baseball fans buying a small position for the involvement rather than the return
This is the use case the structure actually fits, and Finlete markets to it honestly enough. At $300, with the expectation that the money may not come back, the purchase is closer to a season-ticket decision than a portfolio one. The disclosure is good enough that a fan who reads the circular will understand what they bought.
Retail investors looking for uncorrelated income
There is no income. One class has ever paid a dividend, for $6,762, and its underlying contract has since been written to zero. The instrument pays nothing at all unless a specific individual reaches the major leagues, which is a binary event, not an income stream.
Investors seeking exposure to sports as an asset class
Single-athlete concentration is the opposite of asset-class exposure. A team, a league media right or a diversified sports fund spreads outcomes; one prospect in Single-A does not. The Pitcher Bundle diversifies across six players at unequal weights and leaves the issuer risk untouched.
Anyone who may need the money back
No secondary market, no redemption, a 25-year term and an issuer whose audit opinion contains a substantial-doubt paragraph. There is no mechanism by which a holder converts this back into cash on their own initiative.
Accredited or institutional investors
The economics present unusually demanding underwriting hurdles. A third of the raise is consumed before funding, a further 32.5% of collections is not allocated to the class, the gross payback threshold on the flagship live offering is a multiple of a typical major-league career, and the one class with a marked outcome carries a full impairment.
Tradeoffs
Key Tradeoffs
The attraction of pre-IPO access is real, but every benefit comes bundled with a corresponding liquidity, transparency, or pricing cost.
Disclosure quality
The most important fact in the record, the write-down of the Clase contract to zero, is a parenthetical in a footnote, and the marketing site contradicts the filings on what the investor owns.
Novelty
Novelty means no track record, no comparable pricing, no precedent for how the contract performs in a dispute, and no way to know whether the 25-year term is enforceable through an athlete's whole career.
Tax simplicity
It is simple because the issuer is a C corporation, which means the money is taxed at the company before the holder ever sees a dividend.
Alignment
The management fee is taken off the top regardless of outcome and rose from 20.0% to 25.7% in a year, so the parent is paid on raising money, not on athletes succeeding.
Risk-priced share prices
The site's own return calculator displays the same default output on every athlete page, which erases exactly that distinction and overstates the Avila return by about 35%.
Avoid
Who This Is Not For
This section should be read as a filter, not an afterthought. If you need income, simplicity, or near-term access to capital, the structure is working against you.
Income investors
No class has a recurring distribution, and the only class that ever paid one has had its underlying contract written to zero.
Anyone with a horizon shorter than a decade
The agreement runs 25 years, there is no secondary market and there is no redemption right.
Investors who need a defined downside
If the athlete is never Selected, the class receives nothing and there is no residual claim on any other asset.
Retirement accounts using the structure for tax shelter
There is little expected income to shelter, custodian fees are certain, and an illiquid 25-year holding cannot be sold to meet a required minimum distribution.
Anyone treating this as diversification
Each class is one person inside one small, loss-making issuer. The Pitcher Bundle spreads the athlete risk at unequal weights and does nothing about the issuer risk.
Investors who take the homepage at its word
The site says 'No loans. No equity.' Every offering the company has ever sold is preferred stock, which is equity.
Editorial View
AltStreet Perspective
The compressed version of the review: what matters, what marketing tends to obscure, and how we would frame the platform for a serious allocator.
Verdict
A well-disclosed, badly priced instrument in a category that did not exist before. The filings are good enough that a careful reader can price it, and pricing it is what makes the answer no for almost everyone. The structure's defenders can point to genuine innovation, real audits, timely reporting and no enforcement action located in AltStreet's scan. Its arithmetic cannot be argued with: a third of the raise gone before funding, a further 32.5% of collections not allocated to the class, payment contingent on an event most prospects never reach, a 25-year term with no exit, and the one class with a marked outcome carrying a full impairment.
Positioning
Not comparable to any income platform AltStreet covers, despite sharing the royalty plumbing. Royalty Exchange transfers an existing, measurable income stream at a stated multiple; Finlete sells a contingent claim on income that does not exist yet and may never. The closer analogs are venture-style binary bets and fan-equity products, and neither is usually sold at a $300 minimum to a non-accredited audience with a 25-year lock.
The Bottom Line
Real innovation, honestly filed and expensively priced: a third of your money never reaches the athlete, your class is entitled to up to 67.5% of what comes back, and the only contract that has run its course is carried at zero.
Action
Next Steps
If you still want to engage after reading the review, these are the practical next moves that reduce avoidable mistakes.
Read the specific athlete's offering circular before anything else, and go straight to the Use of Proceeds table. That is where the athlete's actual share of your money is stated, and it moved from 69.44% to 65.79% between the 2025 and 2026 offerings.
Find the Dividend Rights clause in that same circular and note the class's percentage. It is 67.50% on Padilla and Avila, 82.50% on Mejia, and 22.5% or less per athlete on the Pitcher Bundle.
Do the break-even yourself and ignore the site's calculator, which displayed the same default answer on all three live athlete pages. Multiply the agreement's maximum percentage by the fraction of it the Use of Proceeds actually funds, then by the class's dividend share, then divide your investment by the result.
Open the FY2025 Form C-AR and read the Future Earning Contracts note.
The Clase line records $237,258 fully impaired to $0 carrying value, and that is the only marked adverse outcome the company has.
Confirm you can lose all of it.
There is no secondary market, no redemption right, a 25-year term and a going-concern paragraph on the issuer.
If what you actually want is royalty income rather than a single-athlete bet, read the Royalty Exchange review, which covers existing income streams priced on trailing earnings.
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Deal Intelligence →Appendix
Sources, Disclosures, and Supporting Context
The lower section is structured like a report appendix: relationship context first, adjacent reading second, and evidence last.
Report Appendix
Disclosure
Relationship and compensation context
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Report Appendix
Disclosure
Relationship and compensation context
Report Appendix
Comparison Guides
Head-to-head guides featuring Finlete
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Report Appendix
Comparison Guides
Head-to-head guides featuring Finlete
Report Appendix
Related Resources
Adjacent platform comparisons, frameworks, and category links
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Report Appendix
Related Resources
Adjacent platform comparisons, frameworks, and category links
Further Reading
Related Resources
Adjacent frameworks and reviews that help place the platform in a broader allocation or due-diligence context.
Explore Asset Class
Athlete Future Earnings (Contractual Income Share)Similar Platform Reviews
- Royalty Exchange Review
The contrast case in the same category: an auction marketplace transferring existing, measurable royalty income at a stated multiple, rather than selling a contingent claim on income that does not yet exist.
- DealMaker Review
The registered broker-dealer acting as Reg CF intermediary on every Finlete offering, reviewed as infrastructure. It is paid an 8.5% commission and is not the issuer.
- Republic Review
A general Reg CF portal, useful for comparing how a multi-issuer marketplace differs from a platform that only sells its own deals.
- Masterworks Review
Another single-asset retail structure where the platform is the issuer, with a longer outcome record to compare against.
Report Appendix
Related Coverage
AltStreet newsroom articles on Finlete filings and disclosures
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Report Appendix
Related Coverage
AltStreet newsroom articles on Finlete filings and disclosures
- Finlete Wrote Its Emmanuel Clase Contract to $0 After a $315,924 Raise, and Did Not Say WhySep 21, 2026
Finlete Funding's FY2025 annual report impairs the athlete agreement behind its largest offering to $0 carrying value in a footnote, with no cause given. Between the offering's closing update and that annual report, 248 days in which the athlete was placed on leave and a federal indictment was unsealed, the issuer filed nothing at all on that offering.
- Finlete Funding Extends Athlete Series Reg CF Deadline Twice on Same Day to 2027Aug 27, 2026
AltStreet monitoring detected two same-day Form C amendments filed August 7, 2026, each resetting the target-amount deadline for the same Finlete Funding offering to a different 2027 date, a sequenced filing pattern that raises questions about which amendment controls.
Report Appendix
Tracked Offerings
15 Finlete offerings with disclosed terms in the AltStreet database
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Report Appendix
Tracked Offerings
15 Finlete offerings with disclosed terms in the AltStreet database
- Finlete Athlete Series (Jul 2026, $215,000 target)
- Finlete Athlete Series (May 2026, $119,000 target)
- Finlete Athlete Series (May 2026, $104,500 target)
- Finlete Athlete Series (Sep 2025, $169,500 target)
- Finlete Athlete Series (Aug 2025, $109,500 target)
- Finlete Athlete Series (Aug 2025, $81,000 target)
- Finlete Athlete Series (Luinder Avila, Aug 2025, $109,500 maximum)
- Finlete Athlete Series (Aug 2025, $102,000 target)
- Finlete Athlete Series (Aug 2025, $137,250 target)
- Finlete Athlete Series (Jul 2025, $91,500 target)
- Finlete Athlete Series (Jul 2025, $73,000 target)
- Finlete Athlete Series (Jun 2025, $85,500 target)
Report Appendix
SEC Filers Behind Finlete
The largest issuers linked to Finlete on EDGAR, by total reported sold; each page carries the filing record and the related persons
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Report Appendix
SEC Filers Behind Finlete
The largest issuers linked to Finlete on EDGAR, by total reported sold; each page carries the filing record and the related persons
Report Appendix
Verified Exit Data
Deal-level exit records and their sources
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Report Appendix
Verified Exit Data
Deal-level exit records and their sources
Report Appendix
Evidence & Methodology
268 cited passages on file; sources, scope, and how the review was assembled
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Report Appendix
Evidence & Methodology
268 cited passages on file; sources, scope, and how the review was assembled
Evidence on file
268 supporting passages on file for Finlete and its offerings from 5 source documents, 16 discrepancies flagged. Each passage records the metric it supports, the value read from the document, the page, and the verbatim text where the document has it. Terminal subscribers read the passages; open them in the terminal.
- Cited passages
- 268
- Source documents
- 5
- Analyst verified
- 0
- Discrepancies flagged
- 16
ASReview Evidence
Methodology
Offerings are grouped by SEC file number (020-NNNNN), which an offering's whole Form C family shares, so an amendment or progress update is never counted as a separate raise. Realized capital per offering is the largest amount reported in that offering's Form C-U series, except where a closing update reports less, in which case the close governs; the total reconciles to $804,738.77 across sixteen offerings. Financial figures are read from the audited statements attached to the Form C-AR annual reports, not from the Form C cover page, which on the FY2025 filing reports stockholders' equity of $136,077 in the long-term debt field. Fee splits, per-share entitlements and dividend shares are quoted from each offering circular's Use of Proceeds table and Dividend Rights clause. The Athlete Agreement terms are read from Exhibit E of the Avila circular, which is filed as a flattened image and was read page by page rather than text-extracted. Live subscription levels are from the operator's own dashboard capture and are labeled platform-reported.
Scope
CIK 0002010670 (Finlete Funding, Inc.) and CIK 0001967761 (Finlete, Inc.), 50 EDGAR filings from 2024-02-27 to 2026-07-21, grouped into sixteen offerings by SEC file number; the five offering circulars for the offerings open at September 21, 2026; the FY2024 and FY2025 Form C-AR annual reports and their audited financial statements; and dated captures of finlete.com and the operator's offerings dashboard taken September 20 and 21, 2026.
Key Findings
- *Use of Proceeds, athlete share at the maximum raise: 69.44% Padilla, 68.49% Avila, 66.28% Pitcher Bundle 1, 66.18% Zazueta, 65.79% Mejia.
- *Management fee to Finlete, Inc.: 20.0% on Padilla and Avila (2025), 25.71% Mejia, 25.32% Zazueta, 25.22% Pitcher Bundle 1 (2026).
- *Intermediary fee: 8.5% commission to DealMaker Securities LLC, stated identically on the Form C cover page and in the Use of Proceeds table of every offering AltStreet checked. The activation fee has changed: the 2024 Clase offering carried '8.5% commission, $7,000 activation fee, and $600/month in subscription fees', and the current offerings carry '8.5% commission, $1,000 activation fee'.
- *Dividend Rights: 'up to 67.50% of the Player Payments under the Agreement received by the Company less amounts withheld for taxes and amounts that are subject to payment or repayment' (Padilla, Avila); 82.50% (Mejia); 22.5% on four athletes and 11.25% and 7.5% on two more (Pitcher Bundle 1).
- *Athlete Agreement Section 2.01: up to $100,000 for up to 1% of pre-tax future professional baseball earnings for 25 years (Avila). Section 2.02: funding is in $1.00 installments each buying 0.00001%, at the company's discretion, with no guaranty that capital will be raised.
- *'Selected' requires a Major League Uniform Player's Contract plus one of four conditions, or a contract with NPB, the KBO or the Chinese Professional Baseball League. No payment is due otherwise.
- *FY2025 Future Earning Contracts note: '$237,258 in Emmanuel Clase, (fully impaired to $0 carrying value as of December 31, 2025)'. That class raised $315,924.
- *Clase offering timeline: Form C filed 2024-09-13 under file number 020-34769 against a $3,600,000 maximum, on an athlete agreement dated 2024-07-16 for up to $2,500,000 for up to 3%; closed 2025-07-15 at $315,924 and 28,471 shares, acquiring a 0.28471% interest; Form C-U filed 2025-08-19 reporting the close in one sentence; nothing further filed on that offering until the FY2025 Form C-AR of 2026-04-24, 248 days later.
- *Public record the filings do not mention: Luis Ortiz, a teammate on the same pitching staff, pulled from a start 2025-07-03 amid a betting investigation; Clase placed on non-disciplinary leave 2025-07-28; indictment unsealed in the Eastern District of New York 2025-11-09 on four felony counts alleging a pitch-rigging betting scheme, which he denies; motions to dismiss the wire fraud count denied 2026-09-09; trial set for 2026-11-02. Clase is not on the 2026 roster and will not be paid his scheduled 2026 salary.
- *AltStreet's arithmetic, not a filed figure: returning the $315,924 raised at the 0.28471% interest the company acquired requires at least $110.9 million of future baseball earnings, before the class's own share of collections is applied.
- *FY2025 income statement: $12,811 revenue, $171,232 impairment loss, $82,911 amortisation, $241,331 gross loss, $74,799 operating expenses, $316,131 net loss.
- *FY2025 balance sheet: $206,439 total assets, $188,378 net athlete contracts, $8,631 cash, $70,362 current liabilities including $45,088 due to the parent, $136,077 total stockholders' equity, no long-term liabilities.
- *FY2025 audit opinion (Artesian CPA, LLC): substantial doubt about the ability to continue as a going concern, citing limited liquid assets, the net loss, a $52,301 working capital deficit and a $316,131 accumulated deficit.
- *FY2025 equity statement: $6,762 of dividends paid on the Clase class, $1,528 payable. No other class has a disclosed distribution.
- *Parent Finlete, Inc.: $922,579 net loss, $1,908,687 accumulated deficit, two employees, reviewed (not audited) statements, raising via SAFE at an $18,000,000 post-money cap as of July 21, 2026.
- *Realized capital by offering: $315,924 (020-34769), $169,402.82 (020-36394), $101,713.04 (020-36009), $80,000 (020-33708), $75,986 (020-35295), $30,403.62 (020-36236), $10,668.90 (020-36127), $10,522.32 (020-36251), $10,118.07 (020-36066). Total $804,738.77.
- *Two offerings, 020-36119 ($73,000 maximum) and 020-36252 ($109,500 maximum), were withdrawn by Form C-W without reporting any sales.
- *Legal and enforcement scan: no SEC or FINRA action against Finlete, Inc., Finlete Funding, Inc., George Robert Connolly or Maxwell Richmond Eisenberg across 33,872 actions on file; EDGAR full-text search returns no third-party mentions.
AltStreet Verified Data
Structured exit database - independently sourced
AltStreet's data layer carries the full Finlete book: sixteen offering records grouped by SEC file number with realized capital on each of the nine that have closed, fifteen promoted deal records, two annual financial periods from the FY2024 and FY2025 Form C-AR filings, seventeen timeline events, forty ingested documents including all five current offering circulars, and entity profiles for both CIKs. The FY2025 period carries an explicit note that the Form C cover page reports stockholders' equity in the long-term debt field, so the balance-sheet figures are read from the audited statements instead. No IRR, multiple or hold period is recorded on any offering, because no class has completed a payment cycle and the only outcome on record is an impairment to zero.
Data as of 2026-09-21. Exit status breakdown: 0 exited . 0 open . 0 unreported.
Primary Source Pages
Comparable Platforms
- Royalty Exchange
Transfers existing, measurable royalty income at an auction-set multiple, rather than selling a contingent claim on income that does not yet exist.
- DealMaker
The registered broker-dealer acting as Reg CF intermediary on every Finlete offering, paid an 8.5% commission plus a $1,000 activation fee, reviewed as infrastructure rather than as an issuer.
- Republic
A multi-issuer Reg CF portal, useful for seeing how a marketplace differs from a platform that only sells its own deals.
- Masterworks
Another single-asset retail structure where the platform is the issuer, with a much longer record of realized outcomes.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
High-intent search questions answered directly, without making users hunt through the full review.
What do you actually own when you invest in Finlete?
Non-voting preferred stock in Finlete Funding, Inc., in a class designated for one specific athlete. You do not own any part of the athlete or any direct claim against them. The company owns a contract entitling it to a capped percentage of that athlete's pre-tax future professional baseball earnings for 25 years, and your class is entitled to up to a stated share of what the company collects under it: 67.50% on the Padilla and Avila classes, 82.50% on Mejia. The site's 'No loans. No equity.' line refers to the athlete not taking on debt or giving up ownership; what you buy is equity in the company.
How much of my money actually goes to the athlete?
Between 65.79% and 69.44%, stated in the Use of Proceeds table of each offering circular. The rest is a management fee to the parent company, Finlete, Inc., which was 20.0% on the 2025 offerings and 25.22% to 25.71% on the 2026 ones, plus an 8.5% commission and a $1,000 activation fee to DealMaker Securities LLC, the registered broker-dealer acting as Reg CF intermediary. On Mejia, the most recent single-athlete offering, the athlete's share is the lowest of the five at 65.79%.
How much does the athlete have to earn before I get my money back?
On the Avila class, roughly $16.2 million to $21.6 million of major-league earnings. The agreement buys up to 1% of his pre-tax professional earnings for up to $100,000, and the Use of Proceeds funds $75,000 at the maximum raise, which supports 0.75%. The class is entitled to 67.5% of what the company collects, so 0.50625% of his earnings, and $109,500 divided by that is about $21.6 million. If the full $100,000 is funded from another source the entitlement is 0.675% and break-even falls to about $16.2 million. Those are gross nominal thresholds, not true break-evens: the dividend clause pays 'up to' its percentage less taxes and amounts subject to payment or repayment, and neither figure discounts a 25-year wait, so the real hurdle is higher. The site's own calculator shows the same default answer on every athlete page.
Has any Finlete investor been paid?
One class has. The FY2025 equity statement shows $6,762 of dividends paid on the Emmanuel Clase class with $1,528 still payable, and no other class has a disclosed distribution. That is also the class whose underlying contract the company wrote down to $0 carrying value at December 31, 2025, having capitalized $237,258 of the $315,924 raised into it.
What happened with the Emmanuel Clase offering?
Finlete raised $315,924 from investors in a class tied to Emmanuel Clase's future baseball earnings, and that offering closed on July 15, 2025. Thirteen days later Major League Baseball placed him on non-disciplinary leave, and on November 9, 2025 a federal indictment was unsealed in the Eastern District of New York charging him with four felony counts over an alleged scheme to rig bets on his own pitches. He has pleaded not guilty, his attorney says he is innocent, and trial is set for November 2, 2026. Finlete's FY2025 annual report, filed April 24, 2026, carries the underlying athlete agreement at $0 and gives no reason. No investor bought into the class after Clase was publicly named, because it had already closed. AltStreet covers the sequence and what it says about Reg CF disclosure in a separate article.
What happens if the athlete never reaches the major leagues?
You receive nothing, and there is no recourse. The Athlete Agreement only obliges the athlete to pay if they are Selected, which requires signing a Major League Uniform Player's Contract and meeting one of four further conditions, or signing with Japan's NPB, Korea's KBO or the Chinese Professional Baseball League. A full career in the minor leagues, however long, triggers no payment. The class has no residual claim on any other asset of the company.
Can I sell my Finlete shares?
In practice, no. There is no secondary market, the filings describe no trading venue or matching service, and there is no redemption or repurchase right. Regulation CF restricts resale for the first year in any case, and the underlying agreement runs 25 years. Treat the money as committed for the life of the agreement.
Is Finlete legitimate, or is it a scam?
It is a legitimate, registered Regulation CF issuer. It files Form C through DealMaker Securities LLC, a registered broker-dealer acting as Reg CF intermediary, publishes audited financial statements, has filed its Form C-AR annual reports on time for both years, and AltStreet's scan of 33,872 SEC and FINRA actions found nothing against either entity or its principals. The objection in this review is to the pricing and the structure, not to the company's legitimacy: a third of the raise is consumed before the athlete is funded, a further share of collections is not allocated to the class, and the one class with a marked outcome carries a full impairment.
Do I get a K-1 from Finlete?
No. Finlete Funding, Inc. is a C corporation and you hold preferred stock, so you receive a Form 1099-DIV in any year a dividend is actually paid, and nothing at all in a year with no dividend. That is simpler than the K-1 regime on most fractional platforms. The cost of that simplicity is the possible second layer: the company may pay corporate tax on what it collects before any dividend reaches you, depending on its taxable income that year.
How much has Finlete raised in total?
$804,738.77 across sixteen offerings since February 2024, reconciled from the Form C-U progress-update series and grouped by SEC file number. Nine offerings have closed, two were withdrawn without selling anything, and five were open at September 2026. That counts closed offerings only. Adding the platform-reported subscriptions on the live offerings brings the comparable total to about $908,000, so the homepage's '$1.0M raised for athletes' is broadly consistent once live commitments are included. Note though that 65.8% to 69.4% of any raise reaches the athlete, so the amount actually raised for athletes is lower than either figure.
What is the Pitcher Bundle and how is it different?
It is a single preferred class attached to six pitchers rather than one, with a $215,000 maximum and an $860 minimum investment. The class is entitled to 22.5% of the Player Payments from four of the athletes and 11.25% and 7.5% from the other two, and the cash allocated per athlete runs from about $11,250 to about $38,750, so the largest position is about 3.4 times the smallest. It spreads athlete risk and does nothing about issuer risk, since all six sit inside the same company. At AltStreet's September 2026 capture the site showed the bundle with its Invest Now control disabled and no deal page behind it.
Who runs Finlete?
George Robert Connolly is Chief Executive Officer and the sole director of Finlete Funding, Inc., and holds 51.02% of the parent, Finlete, Inc. Maxwell Richmond Eisenberg holds 34.01% of the parent and is not an officer or director of the issuing subsidiary. The subsidiary reported one employee and the parent two. The company is based at 100 Park Plaza, Unit 318, San Diego, California.
What should I read before investing in a Finlete offering?
Three things in the athlete's own offering circular. The Use of Proceeds table, which states what share of your money reaches the athlete. The Dividend Rights clause, which states what share of collections your class receives. And Exhibit E, the Athlete Agreement, in particular Section 2.01 for the maximum payment and percentage, Section 2.02 for the fact that funding is discretionary and incremental, and the definition of Selected, which is the condition on which any payment at all depends. Then read the Future Earning Contracts note in the FY2025 Form C-AR.