
Important details for all the pre-seed founders out there - if you're raising on SAFEs, here's what investors are expecting.
1. Your SAFE will almost certainly have a valuation cap.
About 64% of post-money SAFEs have a val cap without a discount. Another 30% have a val cap AND a discount. So 94% have a valuation cap of some kind.
2. Your SAFE will likely be post-money.
81% of all SAFEs issued on Carta in Q2 were post-money. That's a slightly more investor-friendly structure, but seems to be the current default.
3. If you have a discount, it will be 20%.
Almost all discounts are 20%. I'm not sure why there's so little variation there - but it's clear 20% is the standard figure.
Send on to a pre-seed founder you love or a pre-seed investor you like!
More pre-seed data (and data of all kinds) in our weekly Data Minute newsletter, link in comments.
#cartadata #preseed #SAFEs #valuations #startups #founders
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