Before selecting a valuation methodology, building a model, or discussing a valuation conclusion, investors typically need to answer two very different questions: 👉 What do we know about the company? 👉 What do we know about the investment? These may sound similar. In practice, they are completely different information-gathering exercises. 1️⃣ Understanding the Company The first exercise is understanding the company's current circumstances. Questions might include: • Is the

Most discussions about cap tables focus on accuracy. Does the cap table correctly reflect every financing round? Are all SAFEs, options, warrants, and share issuances captured? Is the ownership ledger complete and up to date? Of course, that matters. But for sophisticated venture investors, fund managers, valuation professionals, and finance teams, cap table accuracy is not the end goal. It is merely the starting point. The real objective is ensuring that the waterfall is acc

Most firms treat fair value as an output. A number to report. But the more interesting question is: What can fair value teach us about our portfolio? When used well, it becomes a lens into the economics of your investments, not just an accounting exercise. It can help answer questions like: • Which investments are most sensitive to assumptions? • Which companies have the widest range of outcomes? • Where is value concentrated today? • Where is uncertainty concentrated? At the

After working across hundreds- if not thousands - of cap tables and their underlying documentation, one pattern is unmistakable: 👉 Around 20% of cap tables contain at least one material question that, if unresolved, means the cap table is incomplete or inaccurate. 👉 A meaningful subset goes even further- into genuinely complex and problematic territory We regularly see issues such as: Conversion prices and conversion ratios being swapped (yes this happens) Share price incon

➡️ 1. Your cap table is not just a ledger, it’s latent math. Most teams treat it as a record of past transactions. In reality, it’s the foundation for modeling how value will flow in the future. ➡️ 2. Breakpoints are the cap table in future tense. A breakpoint is the moment when the next dollar of value switches lanes to a different share class. Ownership today. Distribution tomorrow. ➡️ 3. Value allocation is not linear. Preferences, participation rights, ESOP, SAFEs, warran

Most founders and investors treat the cap table as a static artefact, a tidy ledger of who owns what, how much they paid, and how those numbers stack up today. Useful, yes, but also deeply incomplete. Over the past months I’ve written a lot about fair value and how it offers a window into what might be , not just what is. Recently people have asked me: “If you’re doing this for VCs, what about the other side of the equation - the company?” The Traditional View: A Backward-Loo