Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 28, 2012

Since the game of competing is always “where the puck is going” you can have a detailed conversation without completely letting on what your future strategy will be. They want to see your cap table, your legal documents, your major contracts, your full financial model, etc. You’ll just sound cagey. Simply don’t bring them up.

Technical Review 316

Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Cap Table 316

Hunter Walker

JANUARY 2, 2017

The total value of these deals might look higher than when a tech company makes an acquihire but the premium tends to go to retention rather than the cap table (especially since (a) the acquirer might not be seen as an ‘attractive’ place to work and (b) there’s assumption of less equity upside post-acquisition).

Technical Review 115

Technical Review Cap Table Acquisition Startup 115

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

Yes, via conversion rights at a valuation cap. 2-5x return cap + path to uncapped equity returns. Yes, via conversion rights at a valuation cap. Profitability is prioritized : The revenue that is going to grow the company immediately is the same revenue that is going to get investors to their return cap.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

VC Adventure

OCTOBER 8, 2012

This is typically reflected on cap tables in a completely separate tab to the spreadsheet that shows the debt total by investor and then some kind of interest calculation. The problem, of course, is that their convert is already a part of their capitalization – even though it’s not reflected on the cap table.

Cap Table 48

Cap Table Dilution Equity Deal Structure 48

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 8, 2023

Satya and I were having lunch (yummy Chinese food) with our LPAC and the conversation turned to generally “how much more did venture portfolios have to fall before they found their true current value?” ” That is, for the class of funds institutional LPs tend to back, on average, where was bottom?

Portfolio 98

Portfolio Cap Table LP Valuation 98

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

The more data I collected and the more conversation I had with GPs and LPs the more I realized that there was another major factor at play in the concentration of capital in larger funds – many traditional VC firms were now setting up “opportunity funds” or “growth funds.”

Technical Review 398

Technical Review Venture Capital Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 398

View from Seed

OCTOBER 11, 2022

These reflections, conversations, side projects, and time with my newly expanded family gave me clarity. I became certified as a professional coach through the Hudson Institute of Coaching to be a more mindful and effective partner on a founder’s journey.

North America 156

North America San Francisco Cap Table Cofounder 156

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 23, 2019

Previous venture firms’ specific involvement on the cap table should be noted here, though. My partner Rob has previously written some thoughts on how to approach that conversation. Plus, any other non-standard items here should be called out, too, like non-dilutive grants, as applicable.

Cap Table 211

Cap Table Seed Stage Valuation Dilution 211

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2018

Your historical trading information including financials and a “customer file” which shows the history of your transactions so that investors can run “cohort” analyses Customer reference, personal references, key team members, compensation, cap table, stock option plan, etc. So how does this work in practice? Entrepreneur : “Sure.

Cap Table 336

Cap Table Due Diligence Forecast Churn Rate 336

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 20, 2021

This is all incorporated into a document called a Cap Table. . A cap table will help you in the strategic management of business decisions. Wondering what a cap table is, its importance, and how you can maintain it to expand your business? What is a cap table? Let’s dive in.

Cap Table 112

Cap Table Pre-Money Valuation Stock Options Option Pool 112

Hunter Walker

SEPTEMBER 24, 2017

We talked a bit about what she’d learned from those conversations and then the founder confided her most useless investor meeting to me. Spoiler alert, more than enough were positive and she soon closed an oversubscribed round, but of course she also encountered rejection.

Founder 126

Founder Cap Table Conversion Operations 126

Feld Thoughts

APRIL 16, 2019

Hunter has a great lead in: “ Here’s where I think founders and cap tables should be more proactive. He covers three cases: Bullish aka You Are Absolutely Killing It Written You Off Too Early To Tell – Some Good Stuff, Some Challenges But A Lot To Do. The real gold in this post is in the Too Early To Tell category.

Cap Table 82

Cap Table Founder Conversion Email 82

Pascal's View

JULY 9, 2017

However, many VCs experience vexing discussions with CEOs, and many CEOs belatedly realize that this is because they made a mistake: issuing multiple series of notes at various valuation caps without actually sitting down and figuring out the pro forma post-conversion equity ownership.

Post-Money Valuation 49

Post-Money Valuation Valuation Cap Table Covenant 49

Hunter Walker

FEBRUARY 2, 2023

Or ask your cap table who is the best “XYZ” that they know and give them some skin in the game. They [mentor and mentee] need to have safe space together— neither can feel like you’re asking the advisor for performance feedback all the time because if so it’s less likely they’ll have honest, open conversations.

Hiring 60

Hiring Cap Table Equity Dividend 60

Austin Startup

AUGUST 20, 2017

Your Cap Table is something that deserves constant care and attention. Messy cap tables can come back to haunt you when you do a financing or sell the company. Startups often hand out shares, options, and warrants for employees and for contractors rendering needed services. The rest will take care of itself.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

The Startup Toolkit

AUGUST 29, 2012

If you are entering a confusing new industry and need to understand it better, you just need to have some friendly conversations with industry experts, industry veterans, and a book. If you have an ongoing quagmire of an industry ahead of you, you should be able to get the knowledge from customer conversations.

Technical Review 38

Technical Review CTO Hire Cap Table Software Review 38

NZ Entrepreneur

JUNE 21, 2022

From how to develop your idea, to customer validation, investment, communication & marketing, governance, cap tables, due diligence, sales, are just some of the areas that as a founder you will need to navigate. Information you simply can’t get when you go into a conversation with a predetermined agenda.

Founder 88

Founder Cap Table Cofounder New Zealand 88

Hunter Walker

JUNE 14, 2018

. “Personal Support” – In what I hope is a mutually self-selecting outcome, we hear from founders who emphasize wanting investors they trust and feel like they can have real conversations with. Who will hold the accountable to building something they’re proud of but remember we sit on the cap table, not the org chart.

Cap Table 81

Cap Table Portfolio Vertical Reputation 81

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

You never got around to agreeing exact equity splits but you had many conversations about it. They’ll invite you out to events in which you’ll meet their other clients, you can get to know them socially and hopefully develop a real mentorship relationship where every conversation is not on the clock.

Southern California 318

Southern California Silicon Valley IP Stock Options 318

Hunter Walker

NOVEMBER 13, 2018

” It’s been a topic of lobby conversations, off-the-record chats and sometimes even an honest public panel ! Anyway, that’s just my POV right now from a hallway conversation occurring in lots of halls at the moment. What’s my answer to The Softbank Effect? Cool, cool.

Cap Table 95

Cap Table IRR IPO Early Stage 95

techcrunch.com

APRIL 26, 2013

That way, startups only have one entity in the cap table, which simplifies documentation and structure. It’s clear that AngelList wants to help bring much of the transactional conversations and introductions that happen at the early stage of hiring and fundraising via word of mouth or in meetings online.

SEC 61

SEC Accredited Investor San Diego New York City 61

View from Seed

OCTOBER 15, 2014

Include both positives and negatives for a more productive board conversation, which is especially critical in the seed stage since nearly everything is in “figure it out” mode. Section 1: “High Level Summary” This is a short section that we’d recommend structuring in one of two ways.

Seed Stage 331

Seed Stage Cap Table Metrics Burn Rate 331

keen.io

FEBRUARY 5, 2013

This time, I was looking more closely at Keen’s cap table and various financial events, like raising Series A, becoming profitable, and company acquisition. We asked the founders to talk us through the financials, help us complete the detailed cap table, and discuss the offers together. What is the difference between.5%

Salary 50

Salary Equity Startup San Francisco 50

Hippoland

APRIL 10, 2016

Secondly, even if you are ok with either arrangement you have proposed, it is a major red flag to investors to have much of the cap table locked up with dead-beat co-founders / professors / advisors who are not working day-to-day on the company. This will be a terribly difficult conversation, and you may need to move labs immediately.

Cofounder 48

Cofounder Cap Table Equity Vesting 48

Austin Startup

OCTOBER 27, 2017

A truly “balanced” Board will prevent one part of the cap table’s incentives and preferences from overriding those of the others. Founder hostile” VCs are problematic because they push for the perspective of institutional investors to override those of all the other constituents on the cap table.

Founder 48

Founder Cap Table Preferred Stock Common Stock 48

OnlyOnce

FEBRUARY 9, 2022

They are typically founder-led, often by a first-time CEO with new or incomplete management teams who need a lot of mentorship/development, and with a diversified cap table of firms that don’t own operating or consulting practices to help guide the scaling process. We needed another senior leader to join our team. Enter Jenny Lawton.

Silicon Valley 62

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Cap Table Early Stage 62

Austin Startup

DECEMBER 7, 2017

SAFE notes also permit companies to clean up their early-stage cap tables without fear of triggering convertible debt covenants that might prevent them from making needed changes. was originally published in Austin Startups on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Covenant 48

Covenant Cap Table Early Stage SBA 48

ithacaVC

APRIL 5, 2011

I am a huge fan of simple cap tables. A cap table is a written record (in Excel, for example) of who owns stock in your company. This suggestion was completely appropriate as doing a Series A round for only $XX,000 would gum up the company’s cap table (thereby violating the simple cap table rule).

Common Stock 45

Common Stock Stock Cap Table Preferred Stock 45

Business Plan Blog

NOVEMBER 13, 2013

Various terms such as price cap, discount, conversion to equity, etc., The terms of the note are 10% discount and an automatic conversion after a financing of $1,000,000. It gives in depth examples & templates explaining documents like Term Sheet, Cap Table, Convertible Securities plus the importance of 83(b) filing.

Finance 93

Finance Accredited Investor Angel Investor Seed Capital 93

Hunter Walker

JULY 19, 2017

From my perspective, a Scout should disclose upfront, either when requesting a first conversation about an investment or during that first meeting. You’d think this one is unnecessary but I’ve heard different stories from founders with regards to when individual investors disclose their investing someone else’s money.

Founder 69

Founder Silicon Valley Cap Table LP 69

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 2, 2015

Or, if you just want the paragraph, it’s: “If this note converts at a price higher than the cap that you have been given you agree that in the conversion of the note into equity you agree to allow your stock to be converted such that you will receive no more than a 1x non-participating liquidation preference plus any agreed interest.”.

Liquidation Preference 70

Liquidation Preference Cap Table Angel Investor Post-Money Valuation 70

genylabs.typepad.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

I wont bother going into details on start-up financing terms ( see this post for an overview of typical VC terms) except to say if you dont know and understand: the firms cap table and valuation. You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post. what kind of stock you are getting.

Equity 40

Equity Technical Review San Jose Stock 40

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 10, 2016

If you're going to take someone onto your cap table you should talk to other people that VC has invested in. The calls have become real conversations--and the founders and investors can either echo each other's sentiments about their experience or show that perhaps I'm not being consistent. So far, we've gotten great feedback.

Cap Table 60

Cap Table Limited Partner LP Reputation 60

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 21, 2017

AH kicked off this raise based on some inbound conversations with high net worth individuals back in the first quarter of this year--over nine months ago. These types of folks, who may or may not have family offices that they work with, range in difficulty to work with. This led to him actually joining the company as President.

Cap Table 90

Cap Table Cofounder Valuation .Net 90

Hunter Walker

JANUARY 20, 2015

Despite being the smallest line on a founder’s cap table, we were often one of the first calls they made when confronted with a problem to solve or opportunity to consider. One reason Satya and I thought we had Product Market Fit for starting Homebrew was behavior we saw as angel investors. That’s a good thing.).

Cap Table 48

Cap Table Warrant Syndicate Syndication 48

Up and Running

APRIL 25, 2014

What does the cap table look like as you bring on new investors and team members that have equity? A solid planning process forces you to answer these questions.

Silicon Valley 104

Silicon Valley Business Plan Entrepreneur Cap Table 104

David Teten

AUGUST 21, 2019

This includes the application process, phone calls with us, conversations with co-founders, investors and counsel, etc. Lori Smith of White and Williams observes, “The traditional VC is likely going to see these investors in the cap table as a negative. Soup to nuts. May make it harder to raise traditional equity VC.

Revenue 60

Revenue Liquidation Preference Equity Cofounder 60