Cap Table

Also called Capitalization Table

The record of who owns what in your company: founders, investors, and the employee option pool, share by share and percentage by percentage. It updates every time you raise or grant equity.

Why it matters

A clean cap table is a sign of a company that is easy to invest in. A messy one, too many small holders, odd terms, scares off future investors, so it is worth keeping tidy from day one.

For example

A seed-stage cap table shows the two founders at 40 percent each, angels at 10, and a 10 percent option pool set aside for early hires.

Go deeper

Qapita: Cap Table & ESOP Management for Indian Startups qapita.com · article For Indian founders the cap table is where diligence most often gets messy (SAFEs, convertible notes, ESOP grants, and vesting all sprawling across spreadsheets), and Qapita keeps it as a single source of truth built for SEBI-compliant, audit-ready records rather than a US-only view. The free tier covers pre-seed and seed stages, so you can keep the table clean from the first grant instead of reconstructing it under term-sheet pressure. It is one credible option (EquityList is a comparable India-first alternative worth a look), so pick on price and stakeholder count, not brand. Open qapita.com →

Related terms

Also in Starting Up

See how founders actually handle this on Raising your first round, part of the Starting Up hub.

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