# venture-capital.wiki

> venture-capital.wiki is a reference corpus for venture financing mechanics, covering liquidation preference waterfalls, dilution and option pool arithmetic, convertible instrument conversion, standard term sheet provisions, and valuation and pricing algebra.

Most venture terminology is explained qualitatively and then applied quantitatively, which is where confusion starts. This reference states the arithmetic. Where a term changes who gets paid what, the payout formula is given explicitly. Notation is uniform: E is exit proceeds, I invested capital, x the preference multiple, PRE pre-money valuation, POST post-money valuation, FD fully diluted share count, p a holder's fully diluted ownership expressed as a decimal, R the amount raised in a priced round, s a share count, CP a conversion price, cap a valuation or participation cap, d a dividend rate, t elapsed years in a dividend, interest or vesting calculation, and q a target ownership fraction. Symbols used in a single entry are defined where they appear. Nothing here is a market-terms survey; standard versus off-market language is described structurally, not benchmarked to a dataset. The corpus now also covers employee equity and the 409A valuation, round structures including bridges and venture debt, and exit mechanics from the consideration bridge through escrow and appraisal rights. One continuous share ledger runs through all of it - 8,000,000 founder shares, a 1,411,765-share pool and four priced rounds - so a figure in any section can be traced back to the same cap table rather than to a fresh example invented for that page.

Published and maintained by Wall Street Wiki, https://wallstreet.wiki. Contact: wallstreetwiki@agentmail.to. A reference published by the wallstreet.wiki network. Every figure is stated as a formula and recomputed from it, every convention names the authority that sets it, and corrections are versioned and dated.

Corpus: 130 defined terms and 44 reference tables across 8 sections. Reviewed 2026-08-27. Licensed CC BY 4.0.

Each section has a JSON endpoint carrying the same facts without markup or navigation. Measured on this corpus a section's JSON is 36 to 60 percent of the bytes of the equivalent HTML page. The full corpus is available in one request.

Content dates reflect editorial review, not build time. Use the change feed below to decide what to re-crawl rather than re-fetching the whole corpus; every JSON endpoint carries a reviewed field and sitemap.xml lastmod carries the per-section review date.

Calculator pages take their inputs as URL query parameters and compute in the browser. There is no API and no key.

## Data endpoints

- [Full corpus](https://venture-capital.wiki/llms-full.txt): every section inlined as Markdown, one request
- [Full corpus, JSON](https://venture-capital.wiki/index.json): the same content as structured JSON
- [Liquidation preferences, JSON](https://venture-capital.wiki/liquidation.json): 25 terms, 9 tables
- [Dilution and cap table math, JSON](https://venture-capital.wiki/dilution.json): 20 terms, 7 tables
- [Convertible instruments, JSON](https://venture-capital.wiki/convertibles.json): 21 terms, 8 tables
- [Valuation and pricing, JSON](https://venture-capital.wiki/valuation.json): 10 terms, 4 tables
- [Term sheet provisions, JSON](https://venture-capital.wiki/terms.json): 23 terms, 7 tables
- [Employee equity and 409A, JSON](https://venture-capital.wiki/employee-equity.json): 12 terms, 3 tables
- [Rounds, structures and bridges, JSON](https://venture-capital.wiki/structures.json): 10 terms, 3 tables
- [Exit mechanics, JSON](https://venture-capital.wiki/exits.json): 9 terms, 3 tables

## Freshness

- [Change feed](https://venture-capital.wiki/changes.json): dated record of what changed and when, spec wiki-changes/1
- [Change feed, Atom](https://venture-capital.wiki/feed.xml): the same feed as Atom
- [Sitemap](https://venture-capital.wiki/sitemap.xml): lastmod carries the per-section review date

## Reference pages

- [Liquidation preferences](https://venture-capital.wiki/liquidation/): Who gets paid, in what order, and the exact arithmetic of each variant.
- [Dilution and cap table math](https://venture-capital.wiki/dilution/): Pre-money, post-money, option pools, and the arithmetic of who absorbs the dilution.
- [Convertible instruments](https://venture-capital.wiki/convertibles/): SAFEs and convertible notes - how the conversion arithmetic actually resolves.
- [Valuation and pricing](https://venture-capital.wiki/valuation/): Pre-money, post-money, price per share, and the two valuations that are never the same number.
- [Term sheet provisions](https://venture-capital.wiki/terms/): The standard clause set, grouped by what each one actually controls.
- [Employee equity and 409A](https://venture-capital.wiki/employee-equity/): Strike prices, tax events, and what a grant is actually worth behind a preference stack.
- [Rounds, structures and bridges](https://venture-capital.wiki/structures/): Bridges, inside rounds, structured terms, venture debt and the arithmetic of each.
- [Exit mechanics](https://venture-capital.wiki/exits/): From headline price to cash in a holder's account, with every deduction in between.

## Calculators

- [Waterfall calculator](https://venture-capital.wiki/calc/): Exit proceeds distributed across a preferred stack, with each series electing preference or conversion, whichever pays more. Computes proceeds per series, return multiple per series, proceeds to common, conversion election per series, proceeds-to-common curve. Parameters: stack, exit, seniority.
- [SAFE and note conversion calculator](https://venture-capital.wiki/calc/safe/): A stack of SAFEs and convertible notes converted into a priced round, with pre-money and post-money instruments handled by their own rules and the resulting cap table shown line by line. Computes conversion price per instrument, shares issued per instrument, round price per share, post-round ownership per holder, founder dilution attributable to conversion, aggregate committed ownership before the round. Parameters: fd, pre, raise, safes, pool.

## Calculator examples

- [Waterfall calculator](https://venture-capital.wiki/calc/?stack=10000000:1:np:20&exit=25000000): single 1x non-participating series on a 25,000,000 exit. Preferred takes the 10,000,000 preference rather than converting
- [Waterfall calculator](https://venture-capital.wiki/calc/?stack=10000000:1:np:20&exit=100000000): same series on a 100,000,000 exit. Preferred converts and takes 20,000,000
- [Waterfall calculator](https://venture-capital.wiki/calc/?stack=2000000:1:np:12,10000000:1:fp:20&exit=100000000): 1x non-participating seed and 1x participating Series A on a 100,000,000 exit
- [SAFE and note conversion calculator](https://venture-capital.wiki/calc/safe/?fd=8000000&pre=12000000&raise=3000000&safes=1000000:8000000:0:post): one post-money SAFE of 1,000,000 at an 8,000,000 cap. It converts at 0.8750 into 1,142,857 shares and ends at 10.000 percent, with the new investor at 20.000 percent and existing holders at 70.000 percent
- [SAFE and note conversion calculator](https://venture-capital.wiki/calc/safe/?fd=8000000&pre=12000000&raise=3000000&safes=1000000:8000000:0:pre): the same headline terms as a pre-money SAFE. It converts at 1.0000 into 1,000,000 shares and ends at 8.889 percent, with existing holders at 71.111 percent - the 1.111 point difference is the cost of the post-money form
- [SAFE and note conversion calculator](https://venture-capital.wiki/calc/safe/?fd=8000000&pre=5000000&raise=3000000&safes=1000000:8000000:0:post): the same post-money SAFE where the round prices below the cap. The SAFE still converts at 0.8750 while the new money pays 0.5469, so the holder pays 1.60x the new investor's price
- [SAFE and note conversion calculator](https://venture-capital.wiki/calc/safe/?fd=8000000&pre=12000000&raise=3000000&safes=500000:10000000:0:pre,1000000:8000000:0:post): a mixed stack solved simultaneously: the pre-money SAFE takes a fixed 400,000 shares and the post-money SAFE then takes 12.500 percent of the enlarged 9,600,000 pre-round total, or 1,200,000 shares
- [SAFE and note conversion calculator](https://venture-capital.wiki/calc/safe/?fd=8000000&pre=12000000&raise=3000000&safes=1000000:8000000:0.2:note0.06:1.5): a convertible note of 1,000,000 with an 8,000,000 cap, a 20 percent discount and 6 percent simple interest over eighteen months. Interest and discount stack multiplicatively for a 1.3625x share multiplier

## Network

- [wallstreet.wiki](https://wallstreet.wiki): the parent index for this network of references
- [Network registry](https://venture-capital.wiki/network.json): every sibling site, its subject, and its corpus endpoint, spec wiki-network/1
- [hedgefund.wiki](https://hedgefund.wiki/llms.txt): Hedge funds. Institutional hedge fund knowledge graph: terms, strategies, regulations, calculators.
- [options.wiki](https://options.wiki/llms.txt): Options. Deterministic options mathematics: payoff algebra, Greeks in closed form, volatility, margin, expectancy.
- [privatecredit.wiki](https://privatecredit.wiki/llms.txt): Private credit. Private credit structure: instruments and the waterfall, SOFR pricing, return metrics, covenants, vehicles.
- [m-a.wiki](https://m-a.wiki/llms.txt): Mergers and acquisitions. Deal arithmetic: LBO returns and value attribution, accretion and dilution, the value bridge, valuation cross-checks.
- [pe-finance.wiki](https://pe-finance.wiki/llms.txt): Private equity funds. Fund economics: the distribution waterfall, carried interest, performance measurement and what inflates it.
- [fixed-income.wiki](https://fixed-income.wiki/llms.txt): Fixed income. Bond mathematics and market convention: day counts, accrual, price and yield, duration, curves and spreads.
- [quants.wiki](https://quants.wiki/llms.txt): Quantitative finance. Estimators and their failure modes: performance statistics, covariance estimation, portfolio construction, backtest validity.
- [aicrawl.dev](https://aicrawl.dev/llms.txt): AI crawler control. Verified AI crawler registry, robots.txt matching rules, the standards, and what enforcement actually works.

This site owns one subject. A formula or convention appears on exactly one site in the network and the others link to it, so fetching all of them yields no duplicated entries. The membership list is published rather than implied.

## Access and licensing

- [Access terms](https://venture-capital.wiki/access/): the corpus is free under CC BY 4.0; embed licences and hosted API access are the paid products
- [Pricing, JSON](https://venture-capital.wiki/pricing.json): machine-readable price list, what is free, and how to request a quote
- [MCP descriptor](https://venture-capital.wiki/.well-known/mcp.json): every resource and calculator as a tool definition

Nothing on this site is metered. There is no per-crawl charge, no key, and no rate limit; fetch the corpus in one request from llms-full.txt or index.json. The paid products are an embed licence for the calculators and a delivery guarantee on the data, neither of which restricts the free corpus.

## Optional

- [Deep link schema](https://venture-capital.wiki/.well-known/deeplinks.json): machine-readable parameter definitions for the calculators
- [Pricing plan](https://venture-capital.wiki/.well-known/pay-per-crawl.json): which paths are free and what the charged ones cost

Entries carry a source field naming the primary authority where one exists. Entries without one state conventions in general use rather than the rule of any single venue.

Reference information only. Not legal, tax, or investment advice. Venture financing documents vary materially between transactions and jurisdictions; the structures described here are common patterns, not the terms of any particular deal. Consult counsel.