Astrella Blog

We’ve all seen Shark Tank – the contestants go through elaborate preparations to quickly pitch television venture capitalists, attempt to make a deal, and get some buzz around their idea. One thing you don’t ever see is Mark Cuban asking to see well-managed cap table software and that’s where reality and TV start to separate. The saying goes, “there’s nothing real about reality TV” and there’s truth to that. While Shark Tank makes for good TV, the reality is some contestants secure financing and end up seeing their product in stores. Sometimes you even see the Sharks themselves doing commercials (can you believe Kevin O’Leary scrubbing a toilet!?).

As you build your company or brand — it needs to stand for something beyond simply photos of smiling people or a logo mark. It needs to have an ethos and meaning, an organizational culture that drives what you do and how you do it.

By Angela Vuong, Support Manager

Author: Paul Arens, Head of Business Development and Partnerships

Capitalization tables (or cap tables) provide an analysis of a company’s percentages of ownership, equity dilution, and value of equity in each round of investment by founders, investors, and other owners. Developing a cap table and making related decisions can be complicated and overwhelming. Failing to have a clear picture of your company’s share ownership is equivalent to mismanaging company finances. Without a detailed view of who owns what it’s impossible to understand your current and future positions. Many startups create cap tables using spreadsheets, which is ok (but still not ideal) when there are only 2 or 3 owners, but this doesn’t scale. Depending on which study you read, those spreadsheets contain mistakes 70-95% of the time.