How SAFE Check Sizes Vary by Total Round Size

Founders - here's how other US startup founders are constructing their SAFE rounds with different check sizes.

𝗧𝗼𝗽 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝘁 - 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗧𝗼𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗖𝗵𝗲𝗰𝗸𝘀 𝗯𝘆 𝗖𝗵𝗲𝗰𝗸 𝗦𝗶𝘇𝗲

If you're raising less than $1 million on post-money SAFEs, more than 50% of your checks will be for less than $50K each. If you're raising a small "getting started" round of $250K or less, about a quarter of your checks will be for less than $10K.

So - small checks matter! They can start the momentum for a strong round, and more importantly they often lead to introductions to the bigger angels or pre-seed institutional capital.

𝗕𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗼𝗺 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝘁 - 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗗𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗥𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝗖𝗵𝗲𝗰𝗸 𝗦𝗶𝘇𝗲

Of course, bigger checks take up proportionally more of the total dollars raised. But I was surprised at just how quickly the $100K and $250K+ checks came to dominate the distribution.

In a raise of $500K-$999K, checks worth $250K or more made up over half of the total cash.

Some thoughts:

• Small checks remain crucial even into the traditional "seed" round fundraise sizes (anything over $1M).

• Big SAFE raises of $2.5M+ are far more common than they used to be and they are starting to function more like priced rounds (with a lead institutional check).

• Wild that there were 16,000+ post-money SAFEs signed in the last 12 months for Carta companies - this part of the market has held up better than any other venture segment.

Hope this data helps a founder out there think about their upcoming SAFE round more clearly!

#cartadata #SAFEs #startups #founders #fundraising __________

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