SPVs Explained: The Single-Deal Vehicle That's Either Your Best Bet or a $250K Lottery Ticket
SPVs Explained: The Single-Deal Vehicle That's Either Your Best Bet or a $250K Lottery Ticket An SPV costs $8,000 to set up on AngelList and lets you concentrate your entire allocation into one company. That's either...
Advisory Shares: Why 90% of Them Are Worth Nothing (And When to Take the Deal)
Advisory Shares: Why 90% of Them Are Worth Nothing (And When to Take the Deal) Run the math. A pre-seed advisory grant of 0.225% equity, at a startup with a 15% chance of surviving, sold at a 6x exit multiple on a $1M...
Right of First Refusal: The Clause That Can Lock You In or Kill Your Deal
Right of First Refusal: The Clause That Can Lock You In or Kill Your Deal A $250M acquisition died because a seed-stage investor exercised their ROFR. The buyer walked. The seller waited 30 days for a match that was...
Thrive Capital: Josh Kushner's $50B Bet on Conviction Over Diversification
Thrive Capital: Josh Kushner's $50B Bet on Conviction Over Diversification Fund VIII posted 126% IRR. That's not a typo. The OpenAI bet alone — $1.3 billion into a $157 billion round with exclusive follow-on rights —...
Form ADV: The Free Document That Exposes Everything Your Financial Advisor Hides
Form ADV: The Free Document That Exposes Everything Your Financial Advisor Hides 95% of investors have never read their advisor's Form ADV. It's free, it's public, and it reveals every fee, conflict, and disciplinary...
L Catterton: The $40B Consumer PE Firm With LVMH's Playbook (And Its Blind Spots)
L Catterton: The $40B Consumer PE Firm With LVMH's Playbook (And Its Blind Spots) L Catterton sold Everlane to Shein in May 2026. A sustainable fashion brand built on radical transparency — sold to the company...
The Delaware C-Corp Myth: Why 95% of Founders Don't Need One (And the 5% Who Absolutely Do)
The Delaware C-Corp Myth: Why 95% of Founders Don't Need One (And the 5% Who Absolutely Do) I've watched founders spend $3,000–$5,000 per year maintaining a Delaware C-Corp they didn't need — because a Y Combinator blog...
What Is AngelList? The Platform That Democratized VC (And the Returns Problem Nobody Talks About)
What Is AngelList? The Platform That Democratized VC (And the Returns Problem Nobody Talks About) AngelList manages $171 billion in assets across more than 25,000 funds and syndicates. The median SPV return on that...
Seed Funding in 2026: How Much to Raise, What to Give Up, and Who Actually Writes the Check
Seed Funding in 2026: How Much to Raise, What to Give Up, and Who Actually Writes the Check Median seed round in 2026: $3–5M at $10–15M pre-money. That sounds like a healthy market until you look at what happens next....
Common Stock vs Preferred Stock: The Liquidation Waterfall That Wipes Out Founders (With Real Math)
Common Stock vs Preferred Stock: The Liquidation Waterfall That Wipes Out Founders (With Real Math) A founder I know owned 45% of his company on paper. The acquirer paid $25 million — exactly what investors had put in...
SAFE Notes vs Convertible Notes: One Protects Founders, One Protects Investors — Know Which Is Which
SAFE Notes vs Convertible Notes: One Protects Founders, One Protects Investors — Know Which Is Which Y Combinator created the SAFE in 2013 to make fundraising faster. It worked. It also shifted ALL the downside risk to...
TVPI: The PE Metric That Flatters Every Fund Manager (And How to See Through It)
TVPI: The PE Metric That Flatters Every Fund Manager (And How to See Through It) Vista Equity Partners Fund VII is sitting at an estimated 1.3x–1.7x TVPI as of 2024. Sounds like progress. But the fund's DPI — the cash...