Refresh grants across startups - more common than I thought!

Effectively 50% of employees get some form of refresh once they stay 2 years (either tenure, merit, or promo grant).

Lots of potential reasons - but one is likely you get antidilution for free built into the post-money SAFE.

But honestly this should just be priced.

Startup job market to start 2024 remained pretty weak.

Not much hiring, still a high level of latent layoffs, and employees staying in seat when they can.

Hope to see this ratio get back to more normal levels later this year 🤞

We are huge fans of Charles Hudson at Carta 🙏

carta.com/innovator-stor…

Priced seed rounds actually got bigger over the past two years, but basically every other round shrunk.

Where will all the dry powder go if round sizes remain permanently smaller?

Taken from a deck I presented recently here in the Bay - one note AI is in all of these categories.

If you split it out by itself, The Bay Area leads in AI by a very large measure, basically 50% of AI early stage funding is going to Bay Area companies

I recently gave a talk on analyzing markets & competitors to an audience of aspiring biotech entrepreneurs.

Here are the slides: docs.google.com/presentation/d…

I tried to make the deck standalone enough to not need a talk track, and I'd welcome any feedback people have :)

In this episode of HR Heretics: Nolan Church and kelli dragovich chat all things “startups data from Carta” with Peter Walker, Head of Insights at Carta.

They discuss Carta’s comprehensive report on startup compensation trends in H2 of 2023 influencing the flow of “dry…

The market right now in US startup world - Priced Seed through Series C

Data from US companies on Carta. Primary rounds only, no confusing bridge stuff.

Median pre-money vals:
seed - $13.3M
A - $43M
B - $123M

Median cash raised:
seed - $4M (jump up)
A - $10.6M
B - $25M

Unless you’re using the Carta docs available in app (which include the standard post-money AND pre-money versions) 😁

Little look-back at median valuations by stage in the US since Q1 2021.

Seed (priced), A, and B all over Q1 2021 medians as of this past quarter. Series C and beyond still well below.

The gap between early and late remains a chasm in many cases.

Good breakdown (as someone who looks at equity in startups all the time)

Incredibly proud to support founders get their visas and start incredible companies in the US — definitely my favourite part about building On Deck!

Immigrants help other immigrants 🤝

🎧 New The Peel with Peter Walker

If you like data, you’ll love our conversation. We dig into the Q4 2023 data on valuations, downrounds, dry powder, new bubbles, and startup employee trends.

Timestamps to jump around:
00:00 Intro
04:50 Valuation trends in 2023
08:10 Why…

Mental model for SAFEs - instead of focusing on valuation cap, perhaps the discussion should center on ownership?

Good thinking from Chris Harvey. More founders would benefit from taking a conversion percentage model for their SAFEs vs the standard post-money template

Did founding teams that incorporated in 2023 split equity equally?

Generally no. Only 32% split equally.

Median equity by founder indicated by the orange dots (may not add to 100% since each median is independent).