Into Deep Water
Welcome to The Riptide Report
We are a short-biased research publication focused on exposing the most questionable and concerning newly public companies. Our research process is largely document-based (regulatory filings, legal and municipal records) in addition to an exhaustive review of publicly available information and web-based resources. We prefer to let the facts, numbers, and written record speak for themselves, with minimal subjectivity beyond that. Our initial plan is to publish a full-length stock-focused report once a month (on average), with occasional broader thematic pieces, and eventually a recurring newsletter.
While we are big fans of the activist short seller community, we are not short any of the companies we publish on (directly or via options/other mechanisms). We are an independent research shop focused on providing investors and our readers with the most comprehensive short-biased analysis of the newly public companies we write about. Our primary incentive is reputational: Our work must be correct, durable, and verifiable over time.
Our overarching mission is to act as a financial markets “lifeguard” of sorts, providing an early warning sign when we believe reality differs materially from a company’s narrative. Much like a riptide on an otherwise beautiful beach, the danger is often not immediately obvious. The ocean may appear calm, inviting, and perfectly safe on a sunny day, encouraging swimmers to enter the water without a second thought. These companies often look just as attractive on the surface, with compelling narratives and risks that are easy to overlook. Our goal is to identify those underlying currents before investors get swept out to sea.
Why are we launching now? (On the eve of the SPCX IPO no less…)
We believe we’re in the later stages of yet another speculative bubble, this one primarily built on the hype surrounding anything and everything tied to artificial intelligence (AI).
While no bubble is the same, there are typically commonalities among them as they are close to popping, one of which is an explosion in equity issuance as companies look to take advantage of frothy market conditions and investor FOMO. We see many notable recent examples of this behavior including:
GOOGL 0.00%↑’s recent ~$85 billion equity raise via common stock and convertible preferred shares1 - This is the largest combined equity raise in history2
SpaceX’s upcoming $75 billion IPO - This will be the largest IPO in history if completed at current offering terms3
Anthropic4 & OpenAI5 both confidentially filed their draft S-1 with the SEC within the last 10 days, starting the process for what are likely to be massive IPOs (potentially bigger than SpaceX)
As larger and more legitimate companies open the capital markets spigot, there is almost always a following onslaught of equity offerings from smaller and typically more speculative companies riding their coattails. These lesser-known (and often questionable) companies typically have narrow windows in which to go public. Periods of irrational exuberance are often the only times investors are willing to overlook their red flags.
We’ve already seen several concerning companies go public over the last 18 months, and we expect many more to follow. We will focus our research on this smaller set of newly public companies as they often feature uneconomical business models, outlandish promises and expectations, and sometimes outright fraud (although that is rare).
To be clear, we are not AI “doomers” - We utilize most of the large language models (LLMs) in our research process and we recognize the tremendous potential value AI could bring to businesses, broader society, and the world in general. We also have little doubt that some of today’s red-hot sectors will realize some level of long-term benefits from AI. However, it is our belief that many of the companies that have or are hoping to capitalize on the AI hype will not live up to their own or investor expectations, driving significant stock price declines vs current levels and future offering prices.
Why should anyone care what we think? What makes us different?
While we are certainly not fans of the financial markets ecosystem (given many parts of it are designed to benefit a small group of insiders and third parties) we were once deeply part of it. We’ve worked at some of the largest investment banks, a major hedge fund, and multiple operating companies in finance-related roles. We understand the system’s incentives, motives, and tricks. We believe that gives us an edge in finding newly public companies looking to take advantage of that exact system (at the expense of new investors).
When it comes to our research product, we pride ourselves on being able to find and surface thesis-changing information that largely goes overlooked or would never see the light of day otherwise. We enjoy reading through thousands of pages of boring documents to come across the one nugget others have missed. We like manually scraping and collecting data from the darkest corners of the internet. We might spend hours/days watching local government board meeting videos for a 30 second clip that changes the narrative on a company. One could say we have a genuine sickness and a lack of hobbies (they’re probably right), but that’s how we’re wired. We share a love for short-biased deep-dive research, something which has become harder and harder to find over the last few years.
We are not activist short sellers, nor do we publish with the intention of generating short-term trading profits. Our success as a publication will ultimately depend on whether our findings prove accurate, material, and durable over time. We believe the strongest research is judged not by the market’s reaction on publication day, but by how well it stands up months and years later.
Subscribe, share and be on the lookout for our first report
If you’ve made it this far, we think you’re interested enough in what we’re aiming to accomplish with The Riptide Report. We’d really appreciate any support whether that’s subscribing, sharing, and/or following us on X at @Riptide_Report. Everything matters to us as we aim to build one of the preeminent independent short-biased research publications out there. We hope you’re along for the ride.
See GOOGL’s press release (dated 6/3/26)
See Bloomberg article (dated 6/2/26)
See CNN article (dated 6/3/26)
See Anthropic press release (dated 6/1/26)
See OpenAI press release (dated 6/8/26)