Cap Table and Exit Waterfall Masterclass
6 Weeks
·Cohort-based Course
Hybrid masterclass for founders, investors, and lawyers to learn the structures and math for building cap tables and exit waterfalls.
Cap Table and Exit Waterfall Masterclass
6 Weeks
·Cohort-based Course
Hybrid masterclass for founders, investors, and lawyers to learn the structures and math for building cap tables and exit waterfalls.
Course overview
Master cap tables and exit waterfalls
Today more than ever, it's important to know how fundraising structures impact ownership and dilution as valuations change, but the terminology and structures can often be confusing and opaque even to people experienced in finance. Even if you are working with experienced investors, lawyers, and founders, knowing the fundamentals of how venture financing structures work can save you from costly misunderstandings and errors.
I've helped over 35,000 founders, venture capitalists, and lawyers from around the world with tools and classes to understand how equity, convertible notes, SAFEs, and tokens impact their cap tables, dilution, and ownership. This six session workshop provides a comprehensive education on equity fundraises, convertible financing instruments (e.g. convertible notes and SAFEs), options, warrants, exit waterfalls.
This is a hybrid course, with options on how you want to participate in the course:
- Self-paced with the pre-recorded videos of each session along with the bite-sized projects that accompany each session. All materials are immediately available so you can start learning today.
- Live sessions with Taylor and the rest of the cohort for going over the material, Q&A, and exercises to dive deeper into that week's material.
- Or do both! Regardless of how you choose to participate, you'll leave the sessions with access to a spreadsheet resource library covering numerous examples of cap table calculations, slides and videos for you to review whenever you need, and a solid understanding of the fundamentals.
No advanced preparation is required, basic knowledge of venture capital is recommended.
Who this course is for
01
Venture Capital analysts and associates, lawyers and accountants looking to learn how to build cap table models
02
Founders, CFOs, Controllers, VPs of Finance, and finance executives raising capital who are creating and managing cap tables
03
Anyone looking to get into venture capital or startups and understand how cap tables work.
Learn how to read, understand, and create cap tables and exit waterfalls
Build a cap table from scratch
Understand the math and structures necessary to create fundraising rounds, convert notes and SAFEs, calculate proratas, and more.
Build an exit waterfall from scratch
Understand the terminologies and math involved in showing how proceeds from an exit are distributed to the owners of a business, and be able to build your own.
Create scenario analyses around fundraising events
Be able to take a list of shareholders, rounds, share prices, and more from any cap table management software and create your own custom scenario analyses around future fundraising rounds or exits.
Understand how fundraising rounds impact cap tables
Understand how to calculate dilution and ownership over time to understand the impact of different fundraising structures (equity, notes, SAFEs). We will cover the common legal structures used in fundraising and how to understand the terms and the math they imply.
What’s included
Live sessions
Learn directly from Taylor Davidson in a real-time, interactive format.
Lifetime access
Go back to course content and recordings whenever you need to.
Community of peers
Stay accountable and share insights with like-minded professionals.
Certificate of completion
Share your new skills with your employer or on LinkedIn.
Maven Guarantee
This course is backed by the Maven Guarantee. Students are eligible for a full refund up until the halfway point of the course.
Course syllabus
6 live sessions • 13 lessons • 4 projects
Week 1
Apr
16
How to model equity fundraises
How to model equity fundraises
Practice Exercises
Week 2
Apr
23
How to model convertibles
How to model convertibles (SAFEs and convertible notes)
Week 3
Apr
30
How to model options
How to model options
Week 4
May
7
How to model exit waterfalls
How to model exit waterfalls
Week 5
May
14
How to model investor returns
How to model investor returns
Week 6
May
21
Case Study
Case Study
Post-course
How I can help
What students are saying
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Cap Table and Exit Waterfall Masterclass
Meet your instructor
Taylor Davidson
Taylor Davidson
Founder and Managing Director, Foresight
Taylor Davidson is the founder of Foresight, which helps entrepreneurs use financial models for business decisions.
Through his template financial models and strategic advisory services, he has helped over 50,000 entrepreneurs from 116 countries on financial planning, projections, fundraising, valuations, and business strategy.
Taylor has also worked with over 800 angel investors and venture funds on investment strategy, portfolio tracking, capital planning, and fundraising.
He created the Cap Table and Exit Waterfall Masterclass to help founders and VCs learn how to understand and build cap tables and exit waterfalls for their financing rounds.
He created How to Model Venture Funds to help VCs learn how to model portfolio construction, capital flows, and unpack key performance metrics.
Contact him at hello@foresight.is or @tdavidson on Twitter.
Course schedule
2-4 hours per week
Self-paced lessons
1.5 hours per week
1 module per week with slides, spreadsheet, background readings. Watch the 1.5 hour recording of a class on the material, or join each module's live class for Q&A and interaction.
Bite-sized projects
1 hour per week
Practical exercises for you to apply what you learn in class. Download an example of the exercises here. The time commitment is manageable for busy professionals, with actionable takeaways to use in your business.
Live sessions
1.5 hours per week
Live session with Taylor and the rest of the cohort for going over the material, Q&A, and exercises to dive deeper into that week's material.
Tuesdays at 12 PM Eastern time
3 free mini-cases for learning cap tables (with answer keys)
Today more than ever, it's important to know how fundraising structures impact ownership and dilution as valuations change.
Download (Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets) three of the fourteen mini-cases we use in the Cap Table and Exit Waterfall Masterclass to learn cap table math, including how to model equity raises, convertible notes and SAFEs, anti-dilution, option pools, and more. Each case contains answer keys and videos that explain the important calculations.
Questions, contact me anytime.
Get the free spreadsheet
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Cap Table and Exit Waterfall Masterclass
Example - How to model SAFEs
This was a free workshop on modeling SAFEs, which is a small portion of modeling convertibles.
Example - Modeling Anti-Dilution for Cap Tables
This was a free, live workshop on modeling anti-dilution and their impact on cap tables.
Learning together is more effective - and more fun
Active learning with hands-on tools
Six live sessions conducted over Zoom plus downloadable example tools to help you create your own cap tables to edit and use during the course.
Learn with a cohort of peers
You’ll be learning with other venture capitalists, founders, and people looking to learn how to create and understand cap tables and waterfalls.
Learn how you learn best
Join live or just watch the recordings, it's your choice on how you want to participate. Everyone learns differently, and the course is structured to allow you to learn how you learn best.
Build your own models
I've taught over 50 in-person and virtual classes around financial modeling, and it's easy to follow someone else's work, hard to do it yourself. This course is packed with practice exercises and a case study so you can work on building your own models.
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Frequently Asked Questions
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