TL;DR: The release of the Post-Money SAFE structure, which has very harsh economics for founders, has incentivized seed investors to perpetuate various myths and lies about alternatives (particularly about seed equity), in order to push founders to accept more dilution than is really necessary. Founders need to look past the spin and self-interested advice, to ensure they are assessing all the variables clearly.
The fundraising advice that vocal investors, many with blogs and twitter accounts, give to first-time founders often closely tracks their own incentives and self-interest. For example, a few years ago before the creation of the Post-Money SAFE, many early-stage investors complained that Pre-Money SAFEs had all kinds of problems, and that founders should strongly consider equity for their seed rounds. That was, of course, because Pre-Money SAFEs were very company (founder) friendly from an economic and governance rights standpoint, and those investors got more of the cap table by hardening their positions via an equity round with extra rights.
But now that YC has taken it upon itself to promote the Post-Money SAFE, which has terrible economics for companies/founders and is great for early-stage investors, suddenly the narrative has flipped. Now many of those same investors sing the praises of SAFE rounds, and have spun all kinds of myths and lies about why seed equity is apparently now such a terrible structure. The point of this post is to dispel some of those myths and lies.
Myth / Lie #1: In an equity round you have to give investors a board seat.
Simple, you don’t. There’s nothing inherent in doing an equity round that requires giving investors a Board (of Directors) seat, and we’ve seen plenty of equity rounds that don’t. On the flip side, some SAFE and convertible note rounds will involve giving a Board seat to investors. Whether or not giving investors a Board seat in your seed round is appropriate or a good idea is entirely contextual, but there’s no connection to that negotiation point and the general structure of the round.
See also: Pre-Series A Boards.
Myth / Lie #2: Equity rounds require you to close all of your investors at once, instead of with “rolling closings.”
Nope. You can do “rolling closings” quite easily in a seed equity round, so there’s no inherent need to have all of the money rounded up at once. Sometimes investors will place a limit of 120-180 days to do those rolling closings, but other times there’s no deadline and it’s open-ended.
Myth / Lie #3: Equity rounds require you to have a lead investor.
It certainly helps to have a lead investor – someone writing a big enough check, and with their own counsel – to do some light review of the equity docs in a seed equity round, but again there’s nothing inherent in the equity structure that requires it. It’s more about the comfort level of the investors. I have seen “party” seed equity rounds where everyone writes a $50K-200K check. It works fine, particularly now that there are relatively well-known seed equity templates out there that can be referenced and recognized among sets of specialized ECVC lawyers.
Myth / Lie #4: Equity rounds take months to close.
I’ve seen seed equity rounds go from term sheet to money in the bank in 2 weeks. Now that’s definitely on the faster end of the norm, and 3-4 weeks is more common. It’s not lightning fast, but neither is it the dragged-out process that some investors suggest it is. The primary drivers of a lengthier timeline are diligence issues (cleanup) and investor negotiations/delays. Nothing inherent in a seed equity round structure requires it to take a long time, given that well-used templates require minimal customization.
Given how high-stakes the terms you’re committing to in any fundraising are, there is some value in slowing down enough to really know what you’re getting into. See: Negotiation is Relationship Building.
Myth / Lie #5: Equity rounds require paying $50-100K in legal fees.
It is true that any equity structure is likely to require somewhat higher legal fees than a SAFE or convertible note round, but seed equity, which is a simplified equity structure relative to full NVCA-style docs (which are more commonly used for Series A and later rounds) isn’t nearly as expensive to close on as some investors suggest. On the leanest end I’ve seen seed equity close for about $10-15K in company-side legal fees, and $5K on the investor side, but more realistically you’re going to be closer to $20K company side and $10K investor side, so about $30K total; possibly higher if you use very expensive firms.
A good ballpark of fees spent from beginning to end for a multi-million dollar SAFE or convertible note round is $2.5K-$5K, so let’s say the delta between convertibles and seed equity is ~$25K in legal fees. The question then becomes, are the positives to closing on a seed equity round worth more than $25K? Very often they are. Easily.
Especially if your investors are asking for a Post-Money SAFE, which has extremely expensive (long-term) anti-dilution mechanics built into it if you end up needing (and likely will) more seed money later, the difference in dilution between a seed equity raise and a Post-Money SAFE can often be multiple percentage points on your cap table. If the difference is 1%, $25K implies a $2.5 million company valuation. If it’s 2%, it’s $1.25 million.
I have seen many companies raising at $10 million, $15 million, even higher valuations in their seed rounds, with multiple million in funding, and yet their investors act as if the extra cost of a seed equity round is so burdensome that the founders should just do a Post-Money SAFE; which in the long-run hands multiple percentage points on the cap table to the seed investors. Basically they are telling founders that they should avoid paying the equivalent of 0.25-0.5% of their enterprise value now in cash for a more hardened, company-favorable deal structure, and instead give 1-2% more of the company as equity (with upside) to the seed investors, which in the long run could be worth millions for the highest-growth companies. That is a horrible tradeoff for the founders.
Translation: “Don’t spend $25K in legal fees now. That’s a “waste of money.” Instead stick to our preferred template and give us 6-7 figures worth of extra equity!”
This isn’t to say that equity is always the right answer for a seed raise. Hardly. Sometimes pre-money SAFEs make sense. Sometimes convertible notes do. I’m a fan of modifying a convertible note to have the economics behave more like equity, but with the streamlined structure of a note; the best of both worlds. And sometimes your investors will demand that you give them a full NVCA suite of docs. Context matters, and so do the numbers.
There’s no universal answer to how you should structure your seed round, because every company is different, and different investors and founders have different expectations, priorities, and preferences. However, not falling for the most common myths and lies that investors give to push you in favor of their preferred structure – which usually is whatever makes them more money – will ensure your eyes are wide open, and you can assess the positives and negatives clearly.