The Case for Early Founder Exits

Why Selling Instead of Multiple Funding Rounds Often Maximizes Value

The conventional venture capital playbook suggests that founders should raise successive rounds of funding, scale aggressively, and exit at maximum valuation. However, this narrative obscures a fundamental truth that emerges from analyzing actual outcomes: founders who pursue multiple funding rounds frequently end up with less personal wealth, diminished control, and greater personal costs than those who exit earlier. The mathematics of liquidation preferences, cumulative dilution, and opportunity cost tell a compelling story that challenges the “growth at all costs” mentality pervasive in startup culture. Median founder equity ownership can erode from 100% at founding to just 9.5% after Series E, with majority control lost after Series A.

The erosion of founder ownership usually follows a predictable and punishing trajectory. According to comprehensive data from Carta (1) analyzing 6,350 startups between 2022-2024, median founder ownership plummets from 100% at founding to just 56% after a seed round. By Series A, founders collectively own only 36-37% of their company. This hemorrhaging continues relentlessly: 24.5% after Series B, 16.9% after Series C, 11.4% after Series D, and a mere 9.5% after Series E.

The dilution mechanism operates through a straightforward but devastating process. Each funding round typically dilutes existing shareholders by 20-30%, with the rule of thumb suggesting approximately 25% dilution per round. This compounds across multiple rounds. After just three funding events—seed, Series A, and Series B—founders who started with complete ownership often find themselves minority stakeholders in the companies they built. The inflection point where founders lose majority control occurs between seed and Series A, after which they no longer possess unilateral decision-making authority.

What makes this type dilution particularly insidious is its asymmetric impact. While founders bear the brunt of percentage ownership decline, later-stage investors often negotiate anti-dilution protections that shield them from down rounds. When valuations drop—a scenario that became increasingly common, with down rounds reaching 36% of venture deals after the 2008 financial crisis and an astonishing 58% during the dot-com bust—common shareholders, primarily founders and employees, absorb disproportionate dilution while preferred shareholders exercise protective clauses.

The reality can be gut wrenching… Years ago, I met a bright, enthusiastic CEO at one of the M&A seminars that I co-hosted. Asking if he was contemplating an exit for his company, he turned a little somber and said, “I’m still the CEO, but I only have 6% of the company left. There’s no point for me”. Another scenario was even worse. The founder had developed a breakthrough B2B SaaS rights management platform with solid market traction and huge upside potential. He was enticed into a reverse merger with a semi-dormant public company with plenty of cash still in the bank. A new CEO was appointed so that he could ‘focus on product’, a year later he was ousted from the company he had founded…

The Liquidation Preference Trap. How Exit Value Gets Redistributed

Understanding dilution percentages alone dramatically understates the financial damage to founders because it ignores how proceeds are actually distributed during an exit. Liquidation preferences fundamentally alter the payout waterfall, often transforming what appears to be a successful exit into a disappointing outcome for founders.

Fairly standard venture capital term sheets include liquidation preferences that grant investors priority payment before common shareholders receive anything. The most common structure—1x non-participating liquidation preference—entitles investors to receive their full investment back before founders see a dollar. However, more aggressive terms have become increasingly prevalent, particularly in later-stage rounds and during market corrections. Multiple liquidation preferences (2x, 3x, or higher) allow investors to recoup two to three times their investment before common shareholders participate.

Participating liquidation preferences create even more severe outcomes through the notorious “double-dipping” mechanism. With participating preferred stock, investors first receive their liquidation preference, sometimes additionally share pro-rata in remaining proceeds alongside common shareholders. This structure can reduce founder payouts by 20-40% compared to non-participating structures.

The devastating impact compounds through stacking across multiple rounds. Later investors typically hold senior preferences, meaning they receive payment before earlier investors in the liquidation waterfall. Consider a company that has raised Series A ($5M), Series B ($10M), and Series C ($15M), each with 1x liquidation preferences. If the company exits for $50M—seemingly a successful outcome—investors collectively hold $30M in liquidation preferences. After satisfying these senior claims, only $20M remains for common shareholders. If founders own just 17% at this stage (the median after Series C), their take-home is merely $3.4M despite the $50M exit.

This mathematical reality creates scenarios where founders who maintain larger ownership stakes through earlier exits capture vastly more value than those who raise multiple rounds, even when the absolute exit value is identical. In extreme cases documented by liquidation preference analysis, founders can receive less than 10% of exit proceeds even when the acquisition price appears substantial.

The Down Round Catastrophe. When Valuations Reset during Market Lows.

The assumption that company valuations steadily increase across funding rounds reflects optimistic thinking divorced from statistical reality. Down rounds—where a company raises capital at a pre-money valuation lower than the previous round’s post-money valuation—trigger a cascade of negative consequences that devastate founder equity.

The immediate impact manifests through dilution at lower share prices. When a company must issue shares at reduced valuations, it must issue proportionally more shares to raise equivalent capital, creating severe dilution for existing common shareholders. Meanwhile, preferred shareholders frequently hold anti-dilution provisions that automatically adjust their conversion ratios downward, granting them additional shares and transferring dilution burden entirely onto founders and employees.

Historical data reveals that down rounds occur with alarming frequency during market downturns. The venture ecosystem experienced down rounds in an estimated 36% of deals following the 2008 financial crisis. Even more sobering, during the dot-com bust, 58% of venture deals constituted down rounds. As of 2024, amid rising interest rates and tightening capital markets, down rounds resurged as a dominant feature of the funding landscape.

The psychological and signaling effects compound the financial damage. Down rounds publicly announce that the company failed to meet growth expectations, potentially damaging customer confidence, employee morale, and future fundraising prospects. The perception that the company was “over-hyped” in earlier rounds can create lasting reputation damage that constrains strategic options.

An Exit with Nothing – A Sobering Reality for Many

Perhaps the most underappreciated risk founders face in pursuing multiple funding rounds is the very real possibility of walking away with nothing despite years of effort and apparent success metrics. Liquidation preferences create scenarios where any exit below the cumulative amount invested returns zero to common shareholders.

Consider the mathematics: A company that raises $30M across three rounds with standard 1x liquidation preferences must exit for more than $30M before founders receive any proceeds. If the company exits for $28M—seemingly a substantial outcome—the entirety goes to preferred shareholders while founders and employees receive nothing. This is not a theoretical edge case. Stanford University research analyzing 1,516 US-based VC-backed unicorns found that 111 unicorns—7.3% of the sample—exited below $1B despite having achieved billion-dollar valuations during their journey. The most dramatic example documented was Fab, which achieved unicorn status but ultimately sold for just $15M, leaving founders and early employees with minimal returns.

The failure rate data paints an even grimmer picture. Research from Stanford’s Venture Capital Initiative reveals that 34% of typical VC-backed startups fail entirely, resulting in liquidation or bankruptcy where liquidation preferences ensure investors recover whatever assets remain while founders receive nothing. When including “soft landings”—acquisitions where companies sell for less than investors contributed—the true failure rate from a founder wealth-creation perspective exceeds 40%.

Even companies that appear successful by revenue or customer metrics can face devastating outcomes. Multiple rounds of participating preferred stock with cumulative preferences create scenarios where modest exits distribute the vast majority of proceeds to investors. In documented cases, founders of companies with substantial operations and customer bases discovered at exit that stacked preferences consumed 80-90% of proceeds.

Missing the Exit Window. Timing Risk and Market Volatility

The venture capital path can expose founders to profound timing risk that extends well beyond the company’s operational execution. Market conditions for exits fluctuate dramatically, creating narrow windows of opportunity that founders focused on the next funding round often miss entirely.

Exit timing significantly impacts transaction outcomes, with market conditions, industry trends, and company-specific factors all influencing optimal exit windows. Recognizing market trends is essential—a thriving M&A market can significantly boost valuations, while downturns can drastically reduce them. Market consolidation, where larger companies acquire smaller competitors within specific industries, creates exceptional exit opportunities that may be fleeting.

The data on exit market volatility underscores this risk. IPO markets, historically the most lucrative exit path, have become increasingly unreliable. Stanford research demonstrates that IPO share of unicorn exits collapsed from 83% in 2010 to just 11% in 2024—a fundamental restructuring of exit possibilities. Even during the 2021 peak when 85 unicorn exits occurred, IPOs represented only 39% of exits. The IPO market’s violent swings—from 39% of unicorn exits in 2021 to 8% in 2022, recovering to 24% in 2023, then back to 11% in 2024—illustrate the perilous unpredictability founders face.

Strategic acquisition markets demonstrate similar volatility. Global M&A deal value contracted 22% from $3.0 trillion in 2022 to $2.34 trillion in 2023, reflecting deteriorating acquisition appetites. The number of billion-dollar transactions fell 10% while total value declined 15%. Founders timing their exits for optimal market conditions face the reality that windows can close suddenly and remain shut for extended periods.

The opportunity cost of missing optimal exit windows compounds over time. A founder who could have exited at an attractive multiple in Year 3 but instead pursues another funding round may find that by Year 6, market conditions have deteriorated, competitor dynamics have shifted, or investor enthusiasm has waned. The company that commanded premium multiples at one moment may find itself struggling to attract buyers when the founder is finally ready to exit after multiple rounds.

The Time Burn. The Hidden Cost of Perpetual Fundraising

Beyond the financial dilution, pursuing multiple funding rounds imposes enormous time costs that rarely appear in founder calculus but dramatically impact both company building and personal wellbeing. Fundraising represents a full-time distraction from operating the business, and the cumulative burden across multiple rounds can consume years of founder attention.

The typical venture capital fundraising process requires 5-10 months from initiation to closing. Breaking down the timeline reveals the scope: 2-4 weeks getting meetings scheduled, 3-4 weeks pitching to associates and partners, 4-8 weeks for due diligence, 2-4 weeks negotiating term sheets, 2-6 weeks finalizing the round with multiple investors, and 2-4 weeks completing legal documentation and closing. One founder documented conducting 263 investor meetings over 3.5 months to raise a $128K seed round—an extraordinary time investment for modest capital.

These timelines have lengthened considerably. Among startups raising Series A rounds in Q4 2024, the median interval since raising a seed round was 774 days—approximately 2.1 years—compared to 420 days in Q4 2021. This extension reflects both market dynamics and company needs, but it means founders spend proportionally more time preparing for, executing, and recovering from fundraising cycles.

The cumulative burden across multiple rounds becomes staggering. A founder pursuing the traditional seed-A-B-C path can easily spend 18-24 months of their company’s lifecycle actively fundraising. This represents nearly 20% of a six-year journey to exit consumed by capital raising rather than product development, customer acquisition, or team building. Each round requires preparation—financial modeling, pitch deck creation, data room organization—followed by dozens of investor meetings, then post-close legal and administrative work.

This time drain carries profound opportunity costs. Hours spent in investor meetings cannot be devoted to closing key customers, refining product-market fit, or recruiting critical team members. The context-switching between “fundraising mode” and “operating mode” creates cognitive overhead and strategic whiplash. Founders report that the perpetual fundraising cycle prevents them from achieving the focus required to execute on their core business vision.

M&A as Value Maximization. Premiums, Liquidity, and Control

Strategic mergers and acquisitions offer a fundamentally different value proposition that often exceeds the outcomes founders achieve through multiple funding rounds followed by late-stage exits. Understanding the economic structure of M&A transactions reveals why early exits frequently deliver superior founder returns.

Strategic acquisitions command premium valuations that reflect synergies unavailable to financial buyers or public market investors. Control premiums in M&A transactions typically range from 25-30%, though they can extend to 50% above standalone valuations depending on strategic fit. Research analyzing large corporate acquisitions found average control premiums of 34%, with high-tech acquirers paying an average premium of 40.1%. These premiums reflect value that strategic acquirers can realize through integration—cost synergies from eliminating duplicate operations, revenue synergies from cross-selling products, market positioning advantages, and accelerated growth trajectories.

The mathematics of strategic value creation justify these premiums. A strategic buyer evaluating an acquisition analyzes not merely the target’s standalone financials but the incremental value the combination creates. When two companies merge and generate more cash flow than both businesses operating independently, the buyer rationally pays a premium to capture that synergy value. Sophisticated buyers articulate clear synergy cases, and when these synergies are credible and quantifiable, premiums of 12-20x EBITDA or 4-5x revenue become achievable.

Strategic buyers also differ fundamentally from private equity buyers in their approach to valuation. While PE firms maintain financial discipline anchored to internal rate of return targets and industry benchmarking, strategic buyers may “stretch on price” when an acquisition aligns with critical strategic imperatives. If acquiring a target fills a significant gap in the buyer’s portfolio, enables entry into new markets, or eliminates a competitive threat, the strategic buyer’s willingness to pay can substantially exceed purely financial valuations.

The immediate liquidity provided by M&A exits delivers tangible value that paper valuations cannot match. Unlike the illiquidity founders endure while pursuing additional funding rounds—where equity value exists only on paper and cannot be used to pay mortgages, college tuition, or diversify personal wealth—M&A transactions convert equity into cash. For founders who have worked for below-market salaries while building their companies, this immediate liquidity provides financial security and life optionality that deferred exits sacrifice.

M&A transactions preserve optionality for founders through several mechanisms. Deal structures increasingly include rollover equity provisions where founders retain 15-20% ownership in the combined entity. This creates the opportunity for a “second bite of the apple”—participation in a subsequent exit when the acquirer itself is sold or goes public. Documented cases reveal that second bites frequently generate 2x-5x returns on rolled equity within 3-5 years.

The Second Bite Strategy. Compounding Wealth Through Staged Exits

The second bite of the apple represents one of the most compelling yet underappreciated advantages of M&A exits over continuing the venture capital funding treadmill. This strategy allows founders to derisk personal finances through partial liquidity while retaining participation in future upside, effectively achieving portfolio diversification while maintaining entrepreneurial engagement.

In typical rollover equity structures, sellers invest 15-20% of deal proceeds in equity of the acquiring or combined entity. This retained stake continues to grow as the acquirer invests additional capital, professionalizes operations, and scales the business. When the acquirer exits 3-5 years later—often at a substantially higher valuation—the founder’s minority equity is monetized in a second liquidity event.

The mathematics of second bites demonstrate their wealth-creation potential. Consider a founder who sells 80% of a $50M valuation company for $40M while rolling $10M into the acquirer. If the acquirer grows the combined entity to $150M enterprise value over four years, the founder’s 20% stake becomes worth $30M—a $20M gain on the rolled equity alone. Total proceeds reach $60M compared to the initial $40M, representing a 50% wealth increase attributable entirely to the second bite.

This structure aligns incentives between founders and acquirers. The acquirer benefits from founders remaining engaged, contributing institutional knowledge, and driving post-acquisition integration success. Founders benefit from professional management expertise, access to capital, strategic resources, and operational capabilities that enable growth trajectories difficult to achieve independently. Unlike venture capital structures where multiple rounds dilute founder ownership while adding new board members and stakeholder complexity, second bite arrangements typically leave founders with simpler cap tables and clearer paths to future liquidity.

The flexibility of second bite structures accommodates diverse founder preferences. Some founders want to remain actively involved in day-to-day operations; others prefer board seats or advisory roles with reduced operational responsibility. Unlike venture capital paths that lock founders into operational leadership until exit, M&A transactions with rollover equity allow founders to define their ongoing engagement level while still participating in value creation.

The Human Cost. Founder Burnout and Mental Health

The venture capital pathway’s impact on founder wellbeing represents a hidden cost that rarely factors into exit timing decisions but dramatically affects both personal and company outcomes. The relentless pressure of multiple funding cycles, escalating growth expectations, and loss of control exacts profound psychological tolls.

Research reveals alarming burnout rates among startup founders. A 2025 survey of 138 founders found that 54% experienced burnout within the past 12 months, while 73% of California tech founders reported “shadow burnout”—persistent exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced efficacy masked by continued high performance. Broader entrepreneurship research indicates that 87% of founders experience anxiety, depression, burnout, or multiple conditions simultaneously. Half of all entrepreneurs suffer from burnout, yet venture capitalists seldom address this crisis, instead emphasizing relentless effort and rapid expansion while ignoring the consequences.

The structural drivers of founder burnout intensify with each funding round. When founders raise from institutional investors, they surrender not merely equity but optionality. Investors requiring 10x returns force founders to swing for massive exits even when smaller, profitable outcomes would generate significant personal wealth and satisfaction. This fundamentally transforms risk tolerance, growth targets, and strategic direction. The fundraising treadmill compounds stress—as one founder described, “You wake up at 4am when your dream suddenly becomes about fundraising and your parasympathetic response goes into overdrive and you can’t sleep anymore”.

Loss of control following majority dilution creates additional psychological burdens. Founders who built companies around personal vision find themselves accountable to board members and investors with different priorities. The fear of professional consequences deters 61% of founders from seeking mental health support, while 68% actively conceal struggles from stakeholders. Only 12% of founders turn to investors for support, and 56% report receiving absolutely no mental health assistance from investors despite their equity stakes.

The opportunity cost of founder burnout extends beyond personal wellbeing to company performance. CB Insights analysis found that 5% of startup failures directly result from burnout, with the true number likely higher when accounting for poor decision-making and team mismanagement stemming from founder exhaustion. Two-thirds of surveyed founders considered leaving their startups, while 39% contemplated departure within the coming year. As one founder articulated: “I often think I am just on life support and there is a major opportunity cost not just winding things up and getting a job. The juice doesn’t feel worth the squeeze”.

The comparison is stark. Despite identical $50M exit valuations, the early exit delivers $15.75M per founder while the late exit yields only $1.7M per founder—a 9.3x difference in personal wealth.

Early exits offer a fundamentally different psychological trajectory. Founders who exit after one or two funding rounds avoid the compounding stress of perpetual fundraising, maintain greater control throughout their journey, achieve liquidity that enables financial security, and preserve the option to pursue subsequent ventures from a position of reduced financial pressure.

Comparative Scenario. Same Exit Value, Radically Different Outcomes

To illustrate how the timing of an exit could dramatically impact founder wealth even when the ultimate exit valuation remains constant, consider a detailed scenario comparing two paths for a SaaS company founded by two co-founders.

Scenario 1: Early Exit After Series A (Year 3)

The founders raise a single $5M Series A at a $20M post-money valuation, resulting in 25% dilution to 70% founder ownership (35% each). The company grows steadily for three years, during which the founders spend approximately six months fundraising. They receive an acquisition offer of $50M with 100% cash consideration.

The distribution proceeds as follows: The Series A investors hold a standard 1x non-participating liquidation preference entitling them to $5M. The remaining $45M is distributed pro-rata based on ownership percentages. The founders’ 70% stake yields $31.5M, or $15.75M per co-founder. The transaction closes within 90 days, providing immediate liquidity.

Additionally, the acquirer offers the founders the option to roll 20% of their proceeds ($6.3M) into the acquiring company’s equity, providing potential for a second bite if the acquirer achieves its own exit in subsequent years.

Scenario 2: Late Exit After Series C (Year 6)

The same founders pursue the traditional venture capital path. After the Series A, they raise a $10M Series B at a $50M post-money valuation (20% dilution, reducing founder ownership to 56%). Two years later, they complete a $15M Series C at a $100M post-money valuation. Due to cumulative dilution effects and employee option pool expansion, founder ownership drops to approximately 17%—the median after Series C.

Over six years, the founders spend an estimated 18-24 months cumulatively fundraising across these rounds. Multiple down round risks materialize as market conditions deteriorate. After six years, facing limited growth prospects and investor pressure for liquidity, the company receives an acquisition offer of $50M—the same absolute value as Scenario 1 but now representing a down round given the $100M Series C valuation.

The liquidation waterfall reveals the devastating impact of stacked preferences: Series C investors claim their $15M preference first. Series B investors claim their $10M preference next. Series A investors claim their $5M preference. Total liquidation preferences consume $30M of the $50M exit value. The remaining $20M is distributed to common shareholders. The founders’ 17% ownership yields just $3.4M total, or $1.7M per co-founder.

The comparison is stark. Despite identical $50M exit valuations, the early exit delivers $15.75M per founder while the late exit yields only $1.7M per founder—a 9.3x difference in personal wealth. The early exit achieves this outcome in three years versus six years, consumes six months of fundraising time versus 18-24 months, and maintains founder control throughout.

Comprehensive comparison showing early M&A exit delivers 9.3x better per-founder payout ($15.75M vs $1.7M) in half the time with retained control

For the founders in Scenario 2 to achieve equivalent $15.75M personal payouts given their 17% ownership and $30M in liquidation preferences, the company would need to exit for approximately $215M—a 4.3x multiple of the actual exit value. This calculation reveals the magnitude of value destruction embedded in the multiple-rounds pathway: founders must generate dramatically higher company valuations merely to reach the same personal wealth achieved through earlier exits.

When the VC Path Makes Sense. Acknowledging the Counterfactuals

This analysis should not be interpreted as suggesting that raising venture capital is universally detrimental or that all founders should exit as early as possible. Rather, the thesis argues that founders should make exit timing decisions with clear-eyed understanding of the mathematical realities, structural disadvantages, and hidden costs embedded in the multi-round venture capital path.

Venture capital makes compelling sense when founders cannot achieve their vision without substantial external capital for infrastructure, market development, or competitive positioning. Companies pursuing capital-intensive strategies—physical products requiring manufacturing capabilities, businesses competing in winner-take-all markets, technologies requiring extensive R&D before commercialization—may genuinely need the resources that multiple funding rounds provide.

Venture capital also creates value when founders explicitly optimize for outcome magnitude over personal wealth. Founders motivated by transformative impact, mission-driven objectives, or the desire to build category-defining companies may rationally accept personal wealth dilution in exchange for the resources to pursue moonshot visions. For these founders, the venture capital toolkit—not merely capital but also network access, strategic guidance, operational expertise, and brand validation—justifies the dilution and control sacrifices.

The case for later-stage exits strengthens when companies achieve exceptional growth trajectories that genuinely justify increasing valuations across rounds. Companies growing revenue at 3-4x annually while improving unit economics create scenarios where later exits at substantially higher valuations deliver better founder outcomes despite dilution. The critical distinction lies in whether growth genuinely compounds value or whether multiple rounds simply redistribute ownership while the company treads water.

Market timing considerations also complicate the early-versus-late exit calculus. Founders who exit early may miss transformative market shifts, technological breakthroughs, or competitive consolidation that could have generated exponentially higher valuations. The risk cuts both ways—exiting too early forfeits potential upside, while waiting too long risks missing optimal exit windows entirely.

Conclusion. Early Exits as a Strategic Option

The evidence across dilution mathematics, liquidation preference structures, down round risks, fundraising time costs, founder burnout rates, and comparative scenarios converges on a central insight: the conventional wisdom that founders should pursue multiple funding rounds and maximize paper valuations often fails to maximize founder wealth or wellbeing.

Founders contemplating whether to raise another round or explore M&A opportunities should recognize that these decisions involve profound trade-offs that extend far beyond simplistic comparisons of headline valuations. An early exit that preserves 70% founder ownership delivers dramatically different outcomes than a late exit where founders own 17% and liquidation preferences consume the first $30M of proceeds. The same $50M exit value can mean $15.75M per founder or $1.7M per founder—a 9.3x difference determined entirely by timing and structure.

The venture capital path exposes founders to compounding risks—dilution across multiple rounds, stacked liquidation preferences that create unfavorable exit waterfalls, down round possibilities that trigger anti-dilution protections, market timing risks where optimal exit windows pass while pursuing the next funding round, and psychological costs of perpetual fundraising and loss of control. Each funding round narrows the range of exit outcomes that generate meaningful founder wealth, transforming what should be success scenarios into disappointing returns.

M&A exits, particularly after achieving product-market fit but before extensive dilution, offer compelling alternatives. Strategic acquisition premiums of 25-40% above standalone valuations reflect genuine value creation through synergies. Immediate liquidity provides financial security and optionality that paper valuations cannot match. Rollover equity structures enable second bites that can double or triple wealth over subsequent exits. Founders who exit earlier preserve control, reduce time spent fundraising, minimize burnout risk, and maintain flexibility to pursue subsequent ventures from positions of financial strength.

The decision of when to sell ultimately requires founders to honestly assess their objectives, risk tolerance, and definitions of success. For founders optimizing for personal wealth, optionality, control, and wellbeing rather than maximizing paper valuations or pursuing mythical unicorn outcomes, the case for earlier exits proves substantially more compelling than conventional startup narratives acknowledge. Sometimes—perhaps more often than the venture capital ecosystem admits—taking money off the table, avoiding the dilution death spiral, and achieving liquidity while substantial ownership remains represents the highest-value strategic decision a founder can make.

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If you’re interested in having an exploratory discussion about exit options, please E-Mail me at serge.jonnaert@the.merger.company or call me at +1(949)289-9623 Ext. 111

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Disclaimer: This analysis is for informational and illustrative purposes only. All valuation figures, ownership percentages, and payout examples are hypothetical and meant to demonstrate general principles related to founder dilution, liquidation preferences, and M&A timing. They do not represent projections, appraisals, or financial advice regarding any specific company, transaction, or investment. Actual outcomes will vary based on company potential and maturity, unique capital structures, deal terms, and market conditions.

1. https://www.saastr.com/carta-the-actual-real-dilution-from-series-a-b-c-and-d-rounds/