www.avc.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

This is NOT your 409a valuation (we call that "fair value"). This "best value" can be the valuation on the last round of financing. The other important data point is the number of fully diluted shares. The second bracket is Director level managers and key people (engineering and design superstars for sure).

Equity 64

Equity Employee CTO Hire Fractional CTO 64

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 7, 2017

Employee options pools, typically created at the point of financings, shouldn’t be treated as haggling over dilution, but rather a strategic resource that will help founders build the best team and, by extension, a more valuable company. But employee option pool is important enough that I wanted to briefly expand upon my comment above.

Equity 93

Equity Pre-Money Valuation Option Pool Founder 93

www.mattbartus.com

DECEMBER 9, 2012

How to pump up your VC valuation. If you are a company that is fundraising, keep in mind that there are a few different levers you can pull to change the amount of dilution that the founders will experience. One possibility is to negotiate a higher valuation and offer warrants (i.e., Matt Bartus — February 9, 2010.

Warrant 40

Warrant Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Term Sheet 40

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 10, 2010

You can get cash without diluting your ownership in the company. Why not go further, develop more valuation, customer experience, and really, deeply validate the business? In 1M/1M, our preferred financing strategy is customers. Because customer financing equals revenue, not equity.

Cloud 115

Cloud Silicon Valley Incubator Finance 115

Lightspeed Venture Partners

NOVEMBER 19, 2012

Ruck Pack makes a peak performance nutrition shot, designed and tested by members of the Marine Special Forces. It isn’t the formulation that is the barrier to entry, but rather the marketing positioning of an energy drink designed by, and made for Marines Special Forces. 75,000 for 10% implies a $675,000 pre money valuation.

Pre-Money Valuation 166

Pre-Money Valuation Alabama Valuation Churn Rate 166

David Teten

NOVEMBER 17, 2011

Download the Startup Options Valuation model here. In particular, this model is designed to help all team members understand the impact of dilution on their options. Enter Raul: This capital table startup options valuation model was created with the purpose of valuing options for an illiquid, early-stage start-up.

Employee 155

Employee IRR Startup Mexico 155

David Teten

NOVEMBER 10, 2011

Yesterday I wrote about best practices in spreadsheet design.). This is designed to be a simple end-to-end financial model for an early-stage startup. We included a Discounted Cash Flow Valuation tab for the sake of completeness, but it’s irrelevant for most startups. He did a great job refining this and making it user-friendly.

Balance Sheet 154

Balance Sheet Startup Equity Valuation 154

Austin Startup

DECEMBER 7, 2017

There are two problems with early stage investing: telling how much a company is worth when truthfully, it is still worthless; and helping early-stage companies protect themselves from over dilution when they are, effectively, worthless. No need to haggle over valuation with us now, just get funded and get to work.

Covenant 48

Covenant Cap Table Early Stage SBA 48

Lightspeed Venture Partners

OCTOBER 14, 2012

Kevin’s offer seems to be pretty attractive given that there is no equity dilution. Rumor has it that Zulily is raising capital at a valuation in the $1bn range right now. The product is designed to be eaten warm, but was sold in convenience stores, so was typically eaten cold. They seem quite different. WIRED WAFFLES.

Equity 164

Equity Dilution Redemption Distribution 164

Berkonomics

DECEMBER 6, 2010

Such service providers as web designers, public relations firms, even venture banks granting loans, often offer higher value services for a lesser amount of cash and some amount of stock options or warrants (written promises to sell stock at a set price for a future period in time).

Stock Options 61

Stock Options Stock Warrant Common Stock 61

View from Seed

JANUARY 26, 2016

This means that it has rewarded Series A and B investors for chasing momentum and made it less important for these investors to focus on valuation or sound, early unit economics. Third, founders at this stage have an incentive to minimize dilution at the point when their equity is the least valuable. Tweet this.).

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Early Stage Cofounder Finance 120

Scott Edward Walker

APRIL 9, 2012

Part 2 will discuss the two most significant issues for founders in connection with the issuance of convertible notes: (i) the valuation cap and (ii) the discount (and how they interrelate). A valuation of the startup is thus unnecessary; and, if there is no valuation, there are no problems of dilution, taxes and option pricing.

Preferred Stock 87

Preferred Stock Finance Common Stock Liquidation Preference 87

VC Adventure

AUGUST 30, 2010

Both these terms are designed to bound the risk that the convertible debt investors are taking in not pricing the round – they’re investing in an debt-like instrument with equity like risks. Entrepreneurs like convertible debt for some obvious reasons. And ultimately this doesn’t benefit entrepreneurs either.

Angel Investor 103

Angel Investor Early Stage Equity Valuation 103

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 20, 2021

For instance, the cap table will help you with various possibilities while running business activities like available options and pre-money valuations faster. The data presents a historical insight on a cap table that can affect the valuation of your startup when it comes time for a new round of fundraising. Total share ownership.

Cap Table 112

Cap Table Pre-Money Valuation Stock Options Option Pool 112

View from Seed

JANUARY 28, 2016

In short, I believe that the most accurate definition is this: A pre-seed is an early round of financing that is designed to help a company achieve certain intermediate milestones PRIOR to the magic combination of strong PMF + meaningful traction.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Finance Founder Syndicate 120

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 26, 2011

You might think that "company valuation" refers, naturally, to how much your company is - you know - valued. Which terms really are standard for good reasons, which are standard for bad reasons, and which are just gotchas designed to skew the negotiation? But this kind of thinking will get you in trouble fast.

Antidilution 148

Antidilution Term Sheet Silicon Valley Widget 148

Scott Edward Walker

JULY 7, 2011

Redemption rights are principally designed to protect investors from a situation where, after a period of time, their portfolio company is just moving “sideways” and, accordingly, is not an attractive acquisition target or IPO candidate.

Term Sheet 49

Term Sheet Redemption Venture Capital Preferred Stock 49

www.paulgraham.com

APRIL 28, 2010

Another concept we need to introduce now is valuation. I say "in theory" because in early stageinvesting, valuations are voodoo. As a company gets more established,its valuation gets closer to an actual market value. As a company gets more established,its valuation gets closer to an actual market value. Better how?

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Startup Software Review Angel Investor 76

thinkspace.com

SEPTEMBER 7, 2012

Should founders have anti-dilution rights? I was originally hired as a contractor, developing a SaaS app from scratch, including DB design and coding. This is an excellent supplement that many entrepreneurs could use to design compensation plans that make sence. You would want to check and see if your shares can be diluted.

Equity 62

Equity Employee Founder CTO Hire 62

betashop.com

OCTOBER 8, 2012

1 year later we sat down and had an honest conversation with ourselves and realized that our One Thing, the thing we were most passionate about, that we could realistically be the best in the world at, and that was a huge untapped market opportunity was: Design. Never, ever, choose your investors based on valuation. Less is more.

Technical Review 108

Technical Review Technology Software Review Valuation 108

Rob Go

JANUARY 28, 2016

In short, I believe that the most accurate definition is this: A pre-seed is an early round of financing that is designed to help a company achieve certain intermediate milestones PRIOR to the magic combination of strong PMF + meaningful traction.

Cofounder 28

Cofounder Finance Founder Syndicate 28

www.paulgraham.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Some believe only businesspeople can do this-- that hackers can implement software, but not design it. They get the same kind of stock and get diluted the same amount in futurerounds. 6] What I didnt grasp at the time was that the valuation wasnt just the value of the code wed written so far. Thats nonsense.

Startup 105

Startup Cofounder Software Stock 105

Board Effect

MAY 10, 2019

Such metrics can include an investor’s liquidation preference, option exercise windows and expiry dates, and shareholders’ fully diluted ownership percentages. There’s the owner—maybe a partner or two—but unless employees are offered equity from the get-go, there’s typically not a whole lot of dilution.

Cap Table 40

Cap Table Liquidation Preference Dilution Liquidity Event 40

discuss.joelonsoftware.com

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

Movie: "Make Better Software" is a 6 movie course designed to help you as you grow from a micro-ISV to a large software company. Right now, my business is just myself and a part-time employee who does support, testing, and product usability design. where I can learn about how to build a sweat equity team?

Sweat Equity 40

Sweat Equity Equity Angel Investor Affiliate 40

blog.nahurst.com

JULY 19, 2010

I assume both cofounders will be diluted equally as more employees and investors get involved. 7] Non-technical cofounder invests money -5% per $10k: This is an approximation based on a very early stage valuation of $200k. Hes the guy designing and building the product. It certainly doesnt hurt, but it shouldnt affect equity. [7]

Technical Cofounder 43

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Equity Salary 43

The Next Web

DECEMBER 3, 2013

Be realistic with your valuation. If you’re asked to give a valuation for your startup, be honest. If you’ve got a nice UX or design, or know what’s special about it, it just fills the audience with confidence. That varies though, as we’ve turned down apps that have 100,000 downloads and we’ve taken apps that have no downloads.

Startup 153

Startup Cofounder Valuation Dilution 153

Ben's Blog

MAY 24, 2021

Among the findings are: SPAC dilution amounts to roughly 50% of the cash ultimately delivered to the companies brought public. So, even assuming they wanted to raise the same amount of nominal dollars at the IPO as in the past, a higher valuation means they can do so by issuing many fewer shares.

SEC 36

SEC Accredited Investor IPO Technical Review 36

Up and Running

DECEMBER 9, 2014

It’s designed for small and mid size companies and it all started based on a focus of the employees. Our slogan is, “We heart employees,” and everything that we do is designed around usability for the employees. The pro is that it’s cheap capital and it’s not diluted.

Small Business 95

Small Business Finance Forecast Metrics 95