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Thursday, October 15, 2026

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Problems at Dream Finders Homes (DFH)

Dream Finders Homes’ controlling owner borrowed against DFH stock before the homebuilder agreed to finance an acquisition with costly preferred stock and debt.

DFH $764M
Hunterbrook 10 clicks

From X

@StableBread

Fajasy on X

At ~$6.8M net of cash, Nubeva Technologies $NBVAF (TSXV: $NBVA) trades below every one of the five small ransomware-security deals I found with a disclosed price. That’s a CAD$13.0M market cap at CAD$0.185/share (70,173,783 × CAD$0.185), or $9.3M at 1.40 USD/CAD, with the $2.49M of cash and $12,262 of debt netted out. The $6.8M buys two granted patents, two pending applications, the unfinished AI decryptor builder, and a deployment agreement with what Nubeva calls a top-10 global bank, on $500,586 of FY2026 revenue. Here’s what larger security firms paid for five small companies that detect, stop, or recover from ransomware, per the buyers’ filings: → Smokescreen (June 2021): Zscaler $ZS paid ~$11.7M in cash for a startup that plants decoys to catch attackers. → TrapX Security (January 2022): Commvault $CVLT paid $18.65M in cash for an Israeli decoy-technology company. → Minerva Labs (March 2023): Rapid7 $RPD paid $34.6M for a 14-person Israeli startup selling anti-evasion and ransomware-prevention software. → Appranix (April 2024): Commvault paid $26.27M in cash and stock for a Boston startup that cuts the time to rebuild cloud applications after an attack. → Airgap Networks (April 2024): Zscaler paid $124.4M for an “early-stage” network-security company whose product it called a “ransomware kill switch.” For context, Commvault bought TrapX and Appranix as product lines already bringing in ~$3.2M and ~$2.4M a year. Rapid7 and Zscaler bought Minerva Labs and Airgap mainly for their technology. A buyer would be paying for Nubeva’s technology too, meaning four AI patents (assuming the last two come through), the key-capture agent, and a top-10 bank as a reference account (if the license customer renewed), not just ~$500K of revenue. Still, Nubeva’s revenue is a fifth or less of what TrapX and Appranix brought in, and 82% of its revenue comes from two customers, one of which may not have renewed. So I’d put a sale at the low end of these deals, $12-19M (Smokescreen to TrapX), or CAD$0.23-0.37/share, 1.3-2.0x from here. The ~$26M median (2.8x) is the more bullish upside case. If nothing works, two more years of burn leave $0.93-1.29M of cash, and adding the two granted patents and what’s left of the business gets shareholders $1.33-2.01M, or CAD$0.03-0.04/share, a 78-86% loss from CAD$0.185. In other words, CAD$0.185 sits ~45% of the way between the CAD$0.03-0.04 floor and a TrapX-size sale (CAD$0.37/share). If those are the only two outcomes, the market is pricing a sale as close to a coin flip.
@stockgutter

SG on X

$WQEY $SAIQ $LAES $GIW agree to a Rube Goldberg de-SPAC transaction. According to the headline, the purpose is to have Quantismo "become a Nasdaq-listed public company." But, facts. Quantismo is already owned by two public companies, SealsQ and WiseQey. They could simply spin it out to shareholders. As far as I can tell, Quantismo has no meaningful revenue or operations of its own and is simply a holdco for unserious investments in the sector, including (as part of this transaction) a healthy dollop of shitco WiseSat .space (SAIQ). This isn't a private to public transaction. It's a shell game between four existing pubcos. I suspect that retail investors are the marks.

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What I’ve Been Up To

Cogent Communications and AI data-center bottlenecks feature in a newsletter update on recruiting, financial media and conference takeaways.

CCOI $428M
Stock Thoughts 4 clicks
SRTA · long

Strata Critical Medical INC

Strata Critical Medical, SRTA, supplies organ-transport products tied to U.S. transplant growth.

SRTA $382M
Value Investors Club 3 clicks

Solid Power Still Has Promise

Solid Power reported a $0.11 Q2 loss and $419.3 million of cash, with its electrolyte pilot line and BMW and SK On validation central to…

SLDP $473M
Quad 7 Capital 2 clicks

Not So Fast

Entravision, the portfolio’s largest position, fell more than 40% from its highs as Q3 returns dropped to 37.8% YTD.

EVC $606M
The Mikro Kap 5 clicks

Updates

FGPR remains on track, PRTH's management buyout is set at $8.05, and microcap RAVE is described as cheap.

PRTH $645M
Nat Stewart - Stock Picking Newsletter 9 clicks

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