For founders and executives at venture-backed startups, equity is often the centerpiece of compensation – and the primary driver of long-term wealth. But unlike cash compensation, that equity is typically illiquid for years. Outside of an IPO or a sale of the company, opportunities to turn shares into cash are limited, tightly controlled and often
Early-stage startup financings have long reflected a tension between transactional efficiency and legal precision. Instruments such as convertible notes and SAFEs were developed to reduce cost and execution time at the seed stage, but they do so by deferring, and often obscuring, important questions of corporate law, investor rights and tax treatment. A new financing