VC Adventure

OCTOBER 8, 2012

Given the prevalence of convertible debt as a seed financing instrument, an increasing number of companies we look at have some kind of convert in place. 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.

Cap Table 93

Cap Table Dilution Equity Deal Structure 93

Hunter Walker

MARCH 15, 2018

While reading Brotopia, we were also helping theSkimm finish up their new financing , with Google Ventures and Spanx founder Sara Blakely joining the cap table. During that time I’ve heard many male media founders lauded as “visionary” – Jonah Peretti, Shane Smith, Bill Simmons.

Technical Review 71

Technical Review Cap Table Venture Capital Finance 71

Hunter Walker

JANUARY 2, 2017

.” But we also knew that most Fortune 500 M&A transactions aren’t at unicorn levels (actually well sub-$250m), so we advise founders to not over-raise capital until they’re using it to fund profitable growth (or a clear path to profitability). OR, the team and/or investors will be ready to take their money off the table.

Technical Review 115

Technical Review Cap Table Acquisition Startup 115

ithacaVC

SEPTEMBER 4, 2011

Here is the latest edition of Finance Fridays from Brad Feld called “Introducing the Cap Table and CTO” Every startup needs someone to be in charge of the Cap Table. That person is typically the inside finance person, but it does not really matter who so long is it is always current.

Cap Table 49

Cap Table Finance Option Pool Warrant 49

venturehacks.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

SUPPORTED BY Products Archives @venturehacks Books AngelList About RSS How to pick a co-founder by Naval Ravikant on November 12th, 2009 Update : Also see our 40-minute interview on this topic. Picking a co-founder is your most important decision. One founder companies can work, against the odds (hello, Mark Zuckerberg).

Cofounder 101

Cofounder Founder Technical Cofounder Technical Review 101

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 4, 2022

For most founders, fundraising is a struggle. Morality aside, I’d say given the inherent riskiness of startups, I’m not sure this would be a great addition to your cap table. I’m a straight white dude who grew up in NYC and worked in finance. Drug kingpin? I’m the on-paper poster child for “who can get VC dollars”.

Cap Table 163

Cap Table Cofounder Private Equity Finance 163

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 11, 2019

She’s also a founding member of All Raise, a non-profit committed to improving diversity in both funders and founders. What I was interested in seeing was that a lot of these founders believe that they’re not just creating technology, they're creating change and culture. We didn't have signage on the door front.

Founder 68

Founder Lean Venture Capital Cofounder 68

David Teten

MARCH 18, 2021

(co-written with Stephane Nasser , co-founder of OpenVC , an open-source initiative to collect and analyze all VC theses.). OpenVC is a new, open-source initiative to collect and analyze all publicly available VC theses, to help founders more efficiently find the right investors, and vice-versa. Technical founders .

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Cofounder Venture Capital Deal Flow 78

OnlyOnce

JULY 30, 2020

If you’re a founder entrepreneur who has led your company for several years, the odds are you have a significant amount of emotional investment in your company, too. Sometimes you can have a major internal problem related to the cap table–a founder with a lot of stock needs liquidity or you need to push this person out of the company.

Cap Table 48

Cap Table Institutional Investors Startup Early Stage 48

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

RBI normally requires founders to pay back their investors with a fixed percentage of revenue until they have finished providing the investor with a fixed return on capital, which they agree upon in advance. For background, see Revenue-Based Investing: A New Option for Founders who Care About Control. Bigfoot Capital. Key elements: .

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

Hunter Walker

SEPTEMBER 5, 2021

Startup CEOs Should Test Strength of Cap Table Every ~6 Months To Know Where They Stand. Instead I want to focus on Jason’s discussion of bridges and pro rata, because it’s an area which is dynamic in every deal and often misunderstood by founders. Instead my recommendation is to ask every ~6 months or so in-between financings.

Cap Table 94

Cap Table Seed Stage Syndicate Syndication 94

The Next Web

OCTOBER 7, 2013

They were referring to non-founder engineers, most commonly the first hire for technology businesses. is frequently granted ownership significantly less than that of the founders. However, at the very early stage, they are taking as much risk with their future as the founders. Cap tables sound intimidating.

Engineer 129

Engineer Dilution Option Pool Vesting 129

Up and Running

JULY 2, 2014

This should be clearly spelled out in your Capitalization Table , or “Cap Table” as it’s commonly called. A Cap Table shows who owns the company, what the ownership shares are, and what the owners have invested in exchange for that share. Can they create and advise on a Capitalization Table?

Technical Review 118

Technical Review Angel Investor Due Diligence Dilution 118

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 8, 2023

The reality is lots of companies – many of them quite promising – have already undergone, or will be facing, next financings which “clean up” old cap tables. Funds will get rightsized , which helps better align investors and founders in what defines a successful outcome.

Portfolio 98

Portfolio Cap Table LP Valuation 98

OnlyOnce

JULY 14, 2022

I wrote a little bit about the experience of being a multi-time founder in this post where I talked about the value of things like a hand-picked team, hand-picked cap table, experience that drives efficient execution, and starting with a clean slate. I’ve noticed this with non-profit founders as well as for-profit ones.

Cap Table 62

Cap Table Founder Portfolio Finance 62

VC Adventure

OCTOBER 8, 2012

Given the prevalence of convertible debt as a seed financing instrument, an increasing number of companies we look at have some kind of convert in place. 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.

Cap Table 48

Cap Table Dilution Equity Deal Structure 48

OnlyOnce

DECEMBER 1, 2021

Sometimes a founder or a founder’s spouse even steps in on this front. As startups scale, they are likely to hire a more senior accountant, maybe an AR/AP/Collections staff member, or even a Controller or VP Finance. Lots of startups have nothing more than an outsourced bookkeeper or one junior staff accountant.

Hiring 117

Hiring Cap Table Finance Equity 117

Hunter Walker

SEPTEMBER 15, 2023

So when I tell you what I’m seeing in venture financing these days if you disagree with me, it might just be that we’re touching different parts of the elephant. I’m defining Top 10% and Second 10% as “degree to which their founders, markets, and milestones pattern-match for the average seed investor.”

Cap Table 93

Cap Table Valuation Salary Seed Stage 93

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Tim Friedman, Founder, PE Stack , said, “If I could offer one piece of advice to today’s managers, it would be to take the time to understand the demands of the modern institutional LP. Russell Rothstein, Founder and CEO, IT Central Station , a product review site, said, “We see VCs on our site very often. 3) Raise capital.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 2, 2014

Like inside bridge rounds where investors want to protect themselves from the company getting sold prior to the next financing and leaving the bridge funding without adequate returns. Surely there is some amount of extra returns that will get set aside for founders – but what is right and what is fair?

Cap Table 346

Cap Table Cofounder Stock Acquisition 346

Berkonomics

AUGUST 3, 2023

Some businesses require very little capital and the founder can self-finance the enterprise and retain 100% of its ownership and control from ignition through liquidity event (startup through sale). And even with the significant cost of credit card debt, many entrepreneurs aggressively use existing cards to finance a startup.

Private Equity 118

Private Equity Valuation Cap Table Accredited Investor 118

www.informationarbitrage.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

Main February 23, 2010 Advice for CTO Founders: Dont Let Business Kill the Business Founding a technology company is an amazing thing. Too often, however, I have found CTO / Founders paired with business people who not only don't add value, but frequently detract from the value of the business. So my advice to CTO / Founders?

CTO Hire 40

CTO Hire Founder Cap Table Vesting 40

Pascal's View

JULY 9, 2017

Unfortunately, what the CEO/founder forgets most often is that the notes have a multiplier effect in the post-money calculation; the more notes and the further the cap is from the new priced equity, the greater the variance between actual and nominal pre- and post-money valuations.

Post-Money Valuation 49

Post-Money Valuation Valuation Cap Table Covenant 49

Business Plan Blog

NOVEMBER 13, 2013

Most startup founders do not have enough capital to launch their companies and need to raise money at some point. Convertible Debt Financing. Among the most common methods of funding used by startups when raising seed capital is “Convertible Debt Financing.” Various terms such as price cap, discount, conversion to equity, etc.,

Finance 93

Finance Accredited Investor Angel Investor Seed Capital 93

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 7, 2014

5 million was always the classic definition of an A-round between the late nineties (crazy financings aside) and say 2007. Entrepreneurs started demanding that VCs call their first-round financings “seed” rounds even if they were $3 million. It is less about actual money and more about structure of your Cap Table.

Cap Table 399

Cap Table Silicon Valley Term Sheet Finance 399

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. Kalanick, former investor BFF turned highly disappointed by founder behavior. Even for ISO’s, have you heard of form 83(b)?

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Software Review Cap Table Securities and Exchange Commission 48

View from Seed

DECEMBER 11, 2019

I’m thrilled to announce that I’m joining [New Firm] as a Partner where I will continue to invest in great Founders across the industries I care about.”. “I Yes, there are intermittent points of feedback along the way, like valuation marks from subsequent rounds of financing. Bonus points if they’re a Founder of the firm.

Venture Capital 204

Venture Capital Cap Table Partner LP 204

Hunter Walker

MARCH 14, 2019

All the disruption can be pretty jarring to an entrepreneur, especially in situations where the exiting partner represents the top line on your cap table. After that, there’s often enough people around the table to manage the loss/transition of a GP/Board Member (even if it sucks). Such as Homebrew.

Cap Table 95

Cap Table Dilution Silicon Valley Portfolio 95

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 4, 2021

Just before the IPO, I had a far-reaching conversation with co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong as he approached this major milestone for the company he co-founded back in 2012. I'm the co-founder and CEO of Coinbase. It's one of those things that founders can do sometimes where other employees are afraid to do it. I'm curious.

IPO 113

IPO Cofounder Technical Review Government 113

Gust

OCTOBER 8, 2014

Cautionary note: No competent VC is actually fooled when you show up after raising $6M in seed financing and say you’re now raising an A! 5 million was always the classic definition of an A-round between the late nineties (crazy financings aside) and say 2007. It is less about actual money and more about structure of your Cap Table.

Cap Table 136

Cap Table Silicon Valley Term Sheet Non-Compete 136

Altgate

JUNE 25, 2012

—————– Dead equity — equity held by employees and founders no longer working at the company — is a large and growing problem. Instead, the dead equity languishes on the cap table, weighing down the startup and making it harder to attract and motivate the people who could impact its growth.

Equity 44

Equity Vesting Cap Table Technical Review 44

View from Seed

OCTOBER 15, 2014

So, rather than try and fill time unnecessarily and create a lengthy deck just because you’re “supposed to,” Rob — and we’d guess many other VCs as well — will often suggest that a founder create a simple one-sheeter that might start small and build over time. Finance is mission critical, for instance – it just appears on a recurring basis.

Seed Stage 331

Seed Stage Cap Table Metrics Burn Rate 331

Haystack

OCTOBER 2, 2019

Before we dive into this, let me say (1) I know a lot of people personally who run these accelerators and consider them friends (and darn good people); and (2) I know there will be a bunch of founders who will say “Hey, well, I met some great investors this way, so it can work.” Ultimately, the buck stops with the founder.

Deal Flow 106

Deal Flow Cap Table Early Stage Institutional Investors 106

David Teten

NOVEMBER 14, 2019

That said, venture capital is just one of many options to finance your business, and it’s typically the most expensive. The first step is to decide the right capital structure for your financing. PGs can be quite daunting to founders because it puts their personal assets, including homes and investment accounts, on the line.

SBIC 60

SBIC SBA Cap Table Database 60

Genuine VC

MAY 20, 2013

Compared to most other areas of finance, venture capital is practiced as more of an art, as opposed to a science. Otherwise, what I’d call a “credible introduction” is sufficient provided there’s also an additional piece of information (key founder background, specific space, etc.)

Venture Capital 244

Venture Capital Cap Table Portfolio Early Stage 244

keen.io

FEBRUARY 5, 2013

The founders had been dropping hints that they wanted me to join them. To begin answering this question, I started on a quest to understand startup financing. I knew this meant that the founders had come to some conclusion about what to offer, and now I was going to find out what it was. I hoped an offer letter was coming soon.

Salary 50

Salary Equity Startup San Francisco 50

Altgate

AUGUST 25, 2012

—————– Dead equity — equity held by employees and founders no longer working at the company — is a large and growing problem. Instead, the dead equity languishes on the cap table, weighing down the startup and making it harder to attract and motivate the people who could impact its growth.

Equity 28

Equity Vesting Cap Table Technical Review 28