investmentI’ve been looking at CrunchBase to view the investment timeline of various startups - however I am more interested in seeing the equity totals.
Short of Googling public companies - is there any way to find out how much equity founders gave up in exchange for capital? I am guessing that valuations for private companies is like asking a magician to explain a magic trick, but I figured I would ask anyway :)
It’s not magic, it’s just a question of public reporting requirements. Though details may vary among jurisdictions, Public companies are required to disclose a tremendous amount of information whenever they raise capital. There are considerably fewer disclosure requirements for private companies. In fact, there are often no disclosure requirements.
As an example, all the financing deals of the public American corporation Facebook, Inc. can be found on the Securities and Exchange listing for Facebook. Specifying form S-1 will list Facebook’s IPO documents (with all amendments), which is one of several documents that will detail capital structure. Specifying other forms will show you the details of other financing deals. You can search for other public corporations required to provide reporting in the United States using SEC Edgar.
Private corporations are not required to disclose the same level of detail as public corporations must because there isn’t as much of a regulatory need for such detailed information. Any reporting requirements would be determined by the jurisdiction in which a company was incorporated. Facebook, Inc. being incorporated in the US State of Delaware disclosed significant capital structure details prior to its IPO. In 2009 when still a private company, Facebook filed its 10th amendments to their Articles of Incorporation with the State of Delaware which contain some capital structure information. You can get filings by other corporations in Delaware (or other states) for a fee from the state entity responsible for corporate filings.
Any other details about deals have to be released by someone with access to the information. Venture capitalists often release details to the media and to source like CrunchBase as a method of marketing this business and as a way to increase interest in their investments. Even though news reports and crunch base are generally reliable, there is nothing that forces them to be accurate like filings with a government entity like a state of the SEC.
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