We often get this question from founders raising their maiden round from institutional investors – What should be the size of the ESOP (Employee Stock Option Plan) Pool to be created in seed stage? Before we answer that, let’s quickly understand, why are ESOPs even required in the first place? Great tech companies are built by great teams, not just founders. Startups are usually hard pressed for money and therefore attracting high quality talent solely with cash compensation

One of the biggest mistakes founders make is telling investors, “We’re raising because our competitors are raising.” Fundraising should always be rooted in the actual needs of the business. You raise what your own business model demands. But this does not mean that founders should raise all at once. Fund requirement should be broken down in phases, where each round is aligned with the next set of tangible milestones. For example, if you plan to build a SaaS platform that will

Today’s ecosystem is getting crowded - angels, angel networks, micro-VCs, sector VCs, family offices, corporates, venture debt, grants, incubators - and almost all of them say they “fund startups.” That’s why many founders burn months chasing the wrong investors: the cheque size doesn’t fit, the stage is off, the sector thesis isn’t aligned, or the geography/ownership targets don’t match. The real work is matching your  company to the right capital for your stage and story -

Fundraising isn’t something you wing over coffee with a deck and a dream. The best raises are planned well before the first investor meeting is even on the calendar. It’s about being sharp on your numbers, clear on your strategy, and ready to show why now  is the time to bet on you. And as you put yourself through the process, you gain deeper insights into your business, align your management team, and even identify potential vulnerabilities. Here’s a comprehensive list of to

At an avg. ~27K startups get registered every year under the govt.'s scheme of Startup India. In comparison, an avg. of ~1,750 startups raised seed funding p.a. in the last 3 years. Between these 2 numbers lies a universe of decision making, timing and effort. The fact is, fundraising is a full-time job. Convincing new ones and negotiating with the interested ones will take up all of your productive time. Which means that you can’t spend months and months searching for an i

Now that you know about when to raise and how much to raise, the next natural question is how much stakes should you dilute or retain for that matter. Your intuitive mind might say that this is an outcome of how much you are raising and your valuation, but the truth is that more often than not it is the other way round - valuation is the outcome of how much you raise and how much you dilute. Therefore, it is imperative for founders to decide how much stakes they must retain a

You finally do it. After months of pitches, updates, and near-misses, an investor says yes . You exhale, text the team, and for a minute it feels like the round is done. Then the docs land in your inbox - and you realize the raise isn’t over; it’s entering a new phase - a different ball game all together. Terms, instruments, rights, preferences…suddenly there’s a lot more to decide than just “how much.” This is when you have to pick the lane  you’ll run in: convertible  or pr