Course Description

The numbers that matter most are the ones nobody shares. This course reveals them.

Founders are too embarrassed to share what they actually gave up. Investors aren't eager to explain how the math really works. So first-time founders negotiate blind, employees accept offers they can't evaluate, and everyone pretends the cap table isn't the most consequential document in the company.

Using Carta's proprietary data on 40,000+ startups, we'll take a data-driven tour through the startup lifecycle—from co-founder equity splits to IPO—exposing the benchmarks founders won't share and the math investors won't explain.

Each week, an investor who deploys capital at that stage pulls back the curtain: what they're actually looking for, what terms they'll push on, and what leverage you have (or don't).

You'll leave with the benchmarks, mental models, and pattern-matching instincts that insiders take for granted.

Schedule

(Sept 2nd) Rex Salisbury, Cambrian VC — Seed & First Institutional Capital

• How to think about valuation when you have no revenue, and what seed investors are actually looking for. We'll examine option pool sizing and the dilution math that founders often learn too late.
  • SAFEs vs. priced rounds: tradeoffs and when each makes sense
  • Valuation benchmarks at seed (and why they vary so widely)
  • Option pool sizing: the negotiation most founders lose
  • What seed investors evaluate when there's no traction yet

(Sept 9th) Christina Gilbert, Y Combinator — Accelerators & SAFEs

• Age of YC founders trending up
• how SAFEs changed fundraising
• YC has 5x the number of unicorns as other accelerators

(Sept 16) Mercedes Bent, Premise VC — Series A & The Institutional Transition

• Series A is where governance gets real. You'll add board members, negotiate pro-rata rights, and face investors who expect a different level of rigor.
  • The Series A bar: what metrics actually trigger term sheets
  • Valuation step-ups from seed to A (and what drives variance)
  • Board composition and the power dynamics that follow
  • Pro-rata rights, information rights, and protective provisions

(Sept 23) Nnamdi Iregbulem, Lightspeed — Series B & Scaling Product-Market-Fit

• Series B separates companies that found product-market fit from those that faked it. What happens when rounds go sideways (down rounds, flat rounds, pay-to-play), and when employees start asking about secondary sales.
  • Growth vs. efficiency: what Series B investors prioritize now vs. 2021
  • Down rounds and flat rounds: mechanics and signaling effects
  • Employee equity refreshers: when and how much
  • Secondary sales: when they start, who can sell, and at what price

(Sept 30) Ani Pai, Robot Ventures & Dragonfly