I'm curious how much equity founders have after such investment with so many investors? I know there's no standard rule here, but I don't know anything about investors, raising money etc., could someone give me few examples with real life numbers?
Planet Labs has raised a total of $160.1 million in funding across 4 disclosed rounds.[1] I'm going to assume there was also an angel round. Here is some (super) rough math:
| Round | $ in MM | post-$ | non-VC % |
|-----------|----------|----------|----------|
| Founding | - | - | 100 |
| Angel | 1 | 10 | 90 |
| Series A | 13.1 | 50 | 75 |
| Series B | 52 | 225 | 58 |
| Series C | 118 | 550 | 45 |
Note this announcement is the "second closing" of the 95MM Series C from January[2], which means the terms are very likely identical. The WSJ reported the Series C valuation as "materially above" 500 million.[3]
I picked these valuations out of thin air. The only "standard" thing I've seen is that most VC funds are structured for 20% minimum stake in Series A rounds. Later-stage rounds often target less ownership.
The above calculation doesn't take into account any stock for employees. With that, I'd estimate the founders still collectively own about 30-35% of the company.
This could also be totally wrong, since I have no idea what the real numbers are. But as an exercise, you get the idea. :)
If we forget about the percentages they own and focus on the value of their stock we see that their stock goes likes this:
$0
$9m
$37.5m
$130.5m
$247.5m
I suspect that the founder ownership percentages are actually lower than you've suggested and that right now they own somewhere around 20 to 30% which is still valued at $110m to $165m.
Maybe percentage determines voting power but there are plenty of mechanisms that can and are used to retain control at the equity percentages we are talking about.
