How much equity should I get in a Series A startup?

At a typical venture-backed startup, the employee equity pool tends to fall somewhere between 10-20\% of the total shares outstanding. That means you and all your current and future colleagues will receive equity out of this pool.

What does pre Series A funding mean?

Pre-Series A is typically defined by entrepreneurs as a mid-round between seed and Series A (YourStory considers all funding before Series A as pre-Series A). It’s just a new label for startups that secured seed round and failed to convince venture capitalists for a Series-A round.

Should I join a series a startup?

Given these statistics, it’s much better to join a company after their Series A or Series B round. You don’t have to go through the high probability of failure, your base salary is going to be higher, and the company has probably established a scalable business model to potentially allow you to cash in on your equity.

Do startups offer higher equity levels?

Seed-funded startups would offer higher equity—sometimes much higher if there is little funding, but base salaries will be lower. Leo Polovets created a survey of AngelList job postings from 2014, an excellent summary of equity levels for the first few dozen hires at these early-stage startups.

What is an equity offer?

Startups and private companies sometimes entice recruits with an offer of equity compensation to offset lower cash compensation (base and bonus). The equity represents ownership — having a stake in the company you’re helping to grow and succeed. However, understanding and negotiating the equity offer can be difficult and time consuming.

How do I find out what equity grants companies offer?

Glassdoor, Payscale, and GetRaised are good places to start on the salary front, and you can sometimes see the equity percentages companies offer on AngelList. Know what parts of the equity grant are negotiable. Unless you’re an executive, you’ll likely only be able to negotiate your number of shares.

How much lower is the salary of a startup founder?

How much lower will depend significantly on the size of the team and the company’s valuation. Seed-funded startups would offer higher equity—sometimes much higher if there is little funding, but base salaries will be lower.