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What is a cap table? It sounds like a capitalization table... like a summary of existing investors, their terms, and the number of investors + shares of each
by appleflaxen 5y ago
What is a cap table?
It sounds like a capitalization table... like a summary of existing investors, their terms, and the number of investors + shares of each type?
This seems kind of simple; why is it hard to make it standard? (I have no doubt there is a reason; just curious to understand it better)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- pottertheotter 5y agoYes, cap table is the same as capitalization table. They can get very messy as time goes on. You have new investments (from both new and existing investors), changes in terms, etc. Compound that with the fact that there are a lot of different ways you can present the information. So if you're looking at one company's cap table, it can take some time to work through it and understand exactly who owns what and make sure it's correct. Think of it kind of like being able to access a website's information through an API vs having to scrape and parse data from HTML.
- rayshan 5y agoThis. A summary spreadsheet isn't so complex, but the detailed ledger of past and present stakeholders, securities, transactions, etc. get very very long. Spreadsheets don't scale after hundreds of securities are issued > converted > transfer > repurchased.
- glacials 5y agoFrom the article: > For those unfamiliar with a cap table, it’s a list of who owns your company’s securities, which includes your company shares, options and more. A clear and simple cap table should quickly indicate who owns what and how much of it they own. For a variety of reasons (sometimes inexperience or bad advice) too many equity holders often find companies’ capitalization information to be opaque and not easily accessible.