Deal Terms
Cap Table
A spreadsheet showing the ownership stakes of all shareholders in a company — founders, investors, and employees with options.
Short for capitalization table, a cap table is the master record of who owns what in a startup. It lists every equity holder (founders, investors, employees with options, advisors with warrants) along with their share count, type (common vs. preferred), and ownership percentage on both an actual and fully diluted basis. Cap tables grow more complex with each financing round as new share classes are issued and option pools are created. Clean, well-managed cap tables are important to future investors — a messy cap table with too many small investors or unusual provisions can slow or kill deals. Tools like Carta and Pulley have become the standard for cap table management.