Founders Lounge

Advising pre-seed startups is big business - for small slices of pie. In 2023, pre-seed companies on Carta issued equity to more than 7,000 advisors across the 11,000+ companies currently live on Carta Launch (free cap table for all founders until you raise $1 million). Adding an advisor to the cap table is a very common occurrence at this stage.

How much equity are these advisors typically granted? 

Many companies default to the guidelines laid out in the FAST document (Founder / Advisor Standard Template). The starting point is usually 0.25% of fully diluted company equity. That's the whole grant, not annual, but company industry comes into play, even at this early stage. The median grant for Biotech advisors is 0.29% which compares favorably to the 0.20% median for SaaS startups.

Perhaps the bigger takeaway is that across most industries, the 75th percentile advisor is only granted half a percent of equity. Great data for founders  to have their pocket!

Olivia,

We are a consumer fintech looking to sign an advisor agreement with a former CMO. I'd like to cite this data with my potential advisor. We are using the Carta Total Benchmarking tool. Can I find this data for the infographic in the Carta Total Benchmarking tool or on a blog somewhere?

Thanks,
Vinay

Advising pre-seed startups is big business - for small slices of pie. In 2023, pre-seed companies on Carta issued equity to more than 7,000 advisors across the 11,000+ companies currently live on Carta Launch (free cap table for all founders until you raise $1 million). Adding an advisor to the cap table is a very common occurrence at this stage.

How much equity are these advisors typically granted? 

Many companies default to the guidelines laid out in the FAST document (Founder / Advisor Standard Template). The starting point is usually 0.25% of fully diluted company equity. That's the whole grant, not annual, but company industry comes into play, even at this early stage. The median grant for Biotech advisors is 0.29% which compares favorably to the 0.20% median for SaaS startups.

Perhaps the bigger takeaway is that across most industries, the 75th percentile advisor is only granted half a percent of equity. Great data for founders  to have their pocket!

Hi @Vinay Pai! 

This is from our Carta Data Minute newsletter. I'll forward the email to you and you can cite it from there.

Thanks!

Olivia,

We are a consumer fintech looking to sign an advisor agreement with a former CMO. I'd like to cite this data with my potential advisor. We are using the Carta Total Benchmarking tool. Can I find this data for the infographic in the Carta Total Benchmarking tool or on a blog somewhere?

Thanks,
Vinay

Advising pre-seed startups is big business - for small slices of pie. In 2023, pre-seed companies on Carta issued equity to more than 7,000 advisors across the 11,000+ companies currently live on Carta Launch (free cap table for all founders until you raise $1 million). Adding an advisor to the cap table is a very common occurrence at this stage.

How much equity are these advisors typically granted? 

Many companies default to the guidelines laid out in the FAST document (Founder / Advisor Standard Template). The starting point is usually 0.25% of fully diluted company equity. That's the whole grant, not annual, but company industry comes into play, even at this early stage. The median grant for Biotech advisors is 0.29% which compares favorably to the 0.20% median for SaaS startups.

Perhaps the bigger takeaway is that across most industries, the 75th percentile advisor is only granted half a percent of equity. Great data for founders  to have their pocket!