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This is the worked example your question demands: two post-money SAFEs (one at an 8M cap, one at a 12M cap) that each look like 6.25% actually compound to 32 to 35% of common stock by the time a seed round and option pool convert, not the 12.5% naive addition suggests. It hands you a concrete number for the exact stacking trap and a hard dilution budget (20 to 22% across all SAFEs) to set before you sign the second deal, not after.
Post-money SAFE stacking in 2026: the dilution math 83% of founders get wrong
From Capwave.ai by Capwave.ai 14 min read
- Post-money SAFEs stacked at different caps compound: two 6.25% SAFEs convert to 32 to 35% of common, not 12.5%
- Set a written dilution budget (a hard ceiling of 20 to 22% across all SAFEs) before the first instrument, not after the third
- Founders who skip the modeling hit an 8 to 14 point gap between expected and actual dilution at Series A diligence
