A cap table (aka capitalization table) represents a breakdown of your shareholders' holdings. When a company first starts out – everything is quite simple – there is usually one or two classes of shares and few shareholders. But quickly enough (let us hope), things get more complex: the company seeks to raise a seed round, and needs to calculate its pre-money and post-money valuations, in order to make a sensible offer to investors
Cap tables play a crucial role in creating wealth for entrepreneurs. You can build a great company worth millions, but if your cap table is a mess, you might encounter problems and disappointments when it's time to cash out. Of course, as your company matures, the capitalization will increase in complexity with the addition of various preferred and convertible securities. If you don’t know how these instruments work, you might wake up one day and realize you are only entitled to 2% of the cash even though you own 10% of the company.
No Excel sheet has ever been able to capture all of your commitments, obligations, employment agreements and compensation packages as cap table does. Automatically updating your cap tables on an ongoing basis, it allows you to get an accurate snapshot of your company's current holdings and do all the number crunching you need in order to make the most informed decisions.
Cap tables may seem like a simple document, but they are not. They are significant evidence of the company's DNA, management style, and ultimately, its history and success rate. Cap tables document every transaction ever made with regard to stocks, options and other capital compensation components. Your cap table gives you a real snapshot of the decisions you have made along the way and your options management. It reflects the cost of those decisions and their outcome. Therefore, keeping real track of them is priceless.
This is where Cap.TAble comes in- an Equity Management Software of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. Cap.TAble automates and streamlines the entire tracking and updating process, producing up-to-date, clear and concise cap tables. This software as a service (SaaS) application is a state-of-the-art answer to the old ways of doing things. It automates option management from granting to vesting, and enables users to generate, share and circulate up-to-date automatically-generated cap tables in real time. TASE's Cap.TAble also enables users to calculate distributions at any given date, run investment scenarios, compare term sheets, receive an accurate snapshot of their option pools, grant and sign options seamlessly – all at the push of a button, and understand the real meaning of any exit offer and scenario.
In short, in today's fast paced capital market environment, Cap.TAble allows you to keep track of your company's holdings in a seamless, highly reliable way. It thus frees you up to focus on what really counts and make the right informed decisions regarding financing, exits, and option plans; allowing you to take optimum care of your company, shareholders, employees and yourself.
Yes, you can now grant options automatically and calculate vesting dates easily. We hope yours will vest soon.
_______________________________________________________
Written by: Lior Navon, Product Manager at TASE For Private Companies – Cap.TAble.
