Ownership basics
Cap table glossary
Look up ownership, award, financing, exit, and recordkeeping terms used throughout Cap Table and its documentation.
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Read terms in their stated context
This glossary explains terms as used in this app and library. A contract or reporting framework may define the same term more specifically. Use the governing records for the transaction and the linked workflow for the app’s behavior.
Ownership and capitalization
| Term | Meaning in this library |
|---|---|
| Cap table | A record of securities and holders, with ownership calculated on a stated basis and date. |
| Stakeholder | A person or entity associated with securities; adding a stakeholder alone creates no holding. |
| Share class | A category of shares with recorded terms such as common or preferred rights. |
| Authorized shares | The class’s recorded share limit; this is different from issued shares and from a plan reserve. |
| Outstanding | In the app, the share count represented by open issued certificates. |
| Fully diluted | The app’s ownership basis adding relevant options, unsettled RSUs, warrants, and optionally unallocated open-plan reserve. |
| Unallocated pool | Available reserve in plans, separate from awards already granted. |
| Dilution | A reduction in a holder’s ownership percentage when the relevant denominator increases. |
| As-converted | A comparison that treats a convertible security or class as the shares it would become under specified assumptions. |
See Share-count definitions for a worked comparison.
Awards and vesting
| Term | Meaning in this library |
|---|---|
| Option; strike | An award with a stated exercise price per share. Exercise and vesting are different events. |
| RSU | An award of units that can settle into shares under its terms; there is no option strike. |
| Restricted stock | Issued shares subject to restrictions, including reverse vesting when recorded. |
| Vesting; cliff | The schedule by which quantities vest; a cliff postpones the first scheduled vesting. |
| Tranche | A quantity assigned to a particular vesting date in a custom schedule. |
| Acceleration | Recorded terms that bring forward vesting under specified triggers. |
| Exercise; certification | Recording an option exercise and issuing its linked share certificate, which the app can handle together or separately. |
| Settlement | Recording the delivery of shares for RSU units. |
| Committed reserve; recycling | Capacity used under a plan, and its rules for how later events affect availability. |
See An option grant lifecycle for the connection between these quantities.
Financing and exit modeling
| Term | Meaning in this library |
|---|---|
| Pre-money; post-money valuation | Valuation before the specified new investment and after including it under the stated financing assumptions. |
| SAFE; convertible note | Instruments recorded before conversion into a determined share quantity; the app’s note model includes simple interest. |
| Valuation cap; discount | Terms used to determine a supported conversion price. A cap is not a recorded independent appraisal. |
| Pool top-up | An increase to available plan reserve; the round model includes its increase in pre-money capitalization. |
| Anti-dilution adjustment | An adjustment for supported preferred-share protection terms, distinct from protection against every ownership change. |
| Liquidation preference; waterfall | A payment-priority term and the modeled sequence for distributing available proceeds. |
| Participation | A preferred class’s recorded right to share in a remainder in addition to its preference, subject to its terms. |
| FMV | Fair market value; the app stores supplied share valuations rather than independently computing them. |
| Scenario | Named model inputs recalculated against company records, not a frozen ownership snapshot. |
Records and recovery
| Term | Meaning in this library |
|---|---|
| Certificate | The app’s record of issued shares and their links; creating the record is not signing an issuance document. |
| Effective date; recorded time | When an event applies and when the app recorded the operation. |
| Baseline | The first observed state at the start of permanent History, without an invented earlier trail. |
| Activity; History | A recent summary feed and the separate permanent transaction trail with original values and outcomes. |
| Restore point | A retained snapshot of company working data captured before selected operations. |
| Company backup | A Settings JSON export of company data and history; attachment contents are separate. |
| Attachment manifest | A list of referenced documents, not a copy of their contents. |
See Exports, backups, and history to choose the artifact needed for a review or recovery.