Death, Taxes, and Series A Cap Tables

“I resolve to give away 50% of my company in a Series A round, and smile while I am doing it”

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to give a keynote address at the monthly Rockies Venture Club meeting. Sitting down to dinner I noticed they had preset the table with both dessert and salad. How’s that for the ultimate New Years resolutions test. It turned out to be a great segue as my keynote subject was New Years Resolutions for Entrepreneurs. One of my favorites was “I resolve to give away 50% of my company in a Series A round, and smile while I am doing it”. As I wandered real-time into an explanation of this oddly immutable law of Series A, it dawned on me that it I had no idea why this always seemed to be the case. I figured I’d find an explanation for this and that it might make a great follow up to Angels and Demons, the first of my articles in the Startup series. So, grab some salad and cake and read on…

Full Discussion: http://parallax.blogs.com/parallax_calculating_tech/2006/01/death_taxes_and.html