Strike, current valuation, dilution and exit scenarios. Most equity pitches don't survive contact with the spreadsheet.
The four numbers that determine your share of the cap table.
Every funding round dilutes you. Be honest about how much room is left.
Multiples of the current valuation, with the odds you assign to each outcome.
0.200% pre-dilution, 0.120% post-dilution. Probability-weighted, pre-tax.
Probability-weighted expected value is £128,000 pre-tax. The pessimistic case (50% chance of £0) usually dominates the math more than people expect. A typical large-employer offer in vested public-company shares over 5 years often beats early-stage equity in expected value.
Simplified model, does not fully account for liquidation preferences, preferred overhangs, secondary discounts, or vesting cliffs. Common stock usually takes a haircut to preferred in low-outcome exits. Not advice.
Worth runs the cap-table math against your real grant, your real exit assumptions, and the tax treatment in your jurisdiction. Join the waitlist.
Industry data (Correlation Ventures, CB Insights) puts roughly two-thirds of startups at failure or below 1x, around a quarter at 1x to 3x, about one in ten at 3x to 10x, and fewer than 2% at 10x and above. Your specific company's odds depend on stage, traction, market and team, but the prior is humbling.
If you hold common stock (most employees do) and the company has raised preferred (most VC-backed companies have), preferred shareholders get their capital back first in an exit. If the exit value is below the total preferred capital raised, common gets nothing. This calculator simplifies that, real exits often include a 'preferred overhang' that eats into low-outcome scenarios.
These figures are pre-tax. Tax treatment depends on instrument (ISO, NSO, RSU, EMI, SAYE, SIP) and jurisdiction. For US ISOs there's AMT exposure on exercise. For UK schemes, EMI usually qualifies for the most favourable CGT treatment. Use the dedicated equity-comp calculators once you've sized the gross expected value here.