Letting go was the hard part. The paperwork takes minutes.
A counter-signed sale — fully documented, and on the record.
Built by professionals with experience at
- ~5 minutes
- from intake to inbox
- Counter-signed
- with a Certificate of Completion
- Traceable
- by contract ID and hash
Company Signals
See what the public record says.
Type a company and we pull the public signals that it may be dormant or defunct — state registration, SEC and bankruptcy filings, domain and web-archive activity, trademarks. We show the sources openly, including what we couldn’t verify. It’s an honest starting point about the company — not a verdict, and not a read on your taxes.
Company Signals · Acme Corporation
ExampleStrong signals of dormancy
Domain sold off, no LinkedIn presence, and no web activity in twelve months — consistent signals that Acme Corporation is dormant or defunct.
Pointing to dormancy
Domain sold off — parked for sale on Afternic
No LinkedIn presence found
No website activity — 0 web-archive crawls in 12 months
Couldn’t verify
Secretary of State status — not available
Trademark records — not available
Not applicable
SEC / EDGAR filings — Acme Corporation appears to be a private company
These are signals about the company’s status — not a determination that the stock is worthless or that a loss is deductible. A live company can have worthless stock; that’s for you and your advisor.
The reality
Most private bets don’t come back. That’s the math, not a misjudgment.
You’ll hear it from every direction: hold on, just in case. But a diversified angel does fine on the handful that work, and the rest skew hard to zero. A position that quietly stalled — no exit, no dissolution — isn’t a misjudgment. It’s the math of the asset class.
venture financings return less than the capital invested.
Correlation Ventures
of angel exits returned less than the capital invested.
Wiltbank, Returns to Angel Investors in Groups
startups shut down on Carta in 2024 — up ~26% from 769 the year before. Most never filed dissolution.
Carta, 2024
How it works
A bona fide sale. A complete record.
A position comes in.
You add one, or your AI assistant hands it off. It lands as a draft you own.
You review and sign the sale.
You make that call — never DivestMe, never the AI.
Sign and pay.
Sign the agreement and pay per position. DivestMe buys it for $1.00 and counter-signs.
Your package arrives.
The executed agreement and Certificate of Completion, in your inbox the same day.
What you receive
A real document. Not a screenshot.
Every sale produces the same package, delivered to your inbox the same day.
Asset Sale Agreement
The contract for the sale, counter-signed by both parties. You transfer the position; you receive consideration.
Certificate of Completion
A DivestMe-issued transaction acknowledgment, generated on execution with both signing timestamps.
SHA-256 integrity hash
A cryptographic fingerprint that proves the document has not been altered since it was signed.
Unique contract ID
A single reference for the transaction — for your records, and for your advisor's.
What we document
If it’s private and it’s not coming back, we can document it.
No company sale, IPO, or dissolution required. The position only needs to be private, illiquid, and worth little to nothing.
Common stock
Ordinary shares in a private company that never found liquidity.
Preferred stock
Venture or angel-round preferred with no remaining path to an exit.
Convertible notes
Debt meant to convert into equity, with no conversion on the horizon.
SAFEs
A Simple Agreement for Future Equity where the triggering event isn't coming.
Warrants & options
Rights to buy shares at a strike that now exceeds any reasonable value.
Dormant holdings
Any private position where the company has gone quiet for good.
The rules, as they are
What the tax code actually says.
We’re not interpreting these for you — just stating the rules.
Capital losses offset capital gains dollar-for-dollar. There is no annual cap on using a loss against gains.
IRC §1211(b)
Only the excess — losses beyond your gains — is limited, to $3,000 a year against ordinary income. The rest carries forward indefinitely.
IRC §1211; IRS Topic No. 409
Loss on qualifying small-business stock that can be treated as ordinary rather than capital — single, or married filing jointly.
IRC §1244
No sale, no recognized loss. That’s the whole reason a documented sale exists.
Pricing
Pay only for what you confirm.
A flat fee per position. No percentage of anything, no subscription, no hidden charges.
Single position
One dead position, documented.
- Counter-signed Asset Sale Agreement
- Certificate of Completion
- SHA-256 verified PDF
- Unique contract ID
Multi-Position
For several positions handed over at once.
- Everything in Single position
- Document up to 5 positions
- 12 months to use them
- Pay only for what you confirm
Questions about volume? Get in touch.
Questions, answered plainly.
Still have a question?
Ask us anything about the transaction or the documentation before you start.
Contact usWhy we built this
DivestMe started with friends. You back someone’s company — maybe they backed yours — because that’s how it works here. Ten years on, you’re still friends, but the company is long gone and you’ve both moved on. The investment never closed. We built a clean, documented way to finally close it — because capital and attention should keep moving, not sit frozen in a bet that died a decade ago.
Close the position cleanly.
A real sale and a signed record, in your inbox the same day.