A cap table is a comprehensive ledger of the financial instruments issued by a company including equity and debt securities as well as options which details the financial claims represented by each instrument and lists the holders of the instruments. The cap table informs stakeholder decisions about financing, investment, and compensation through an understanding of the impact of these critical activities on the value and proportion of ownership held by each investor, employee, and founder. For example, a company’s management needs to understand the dilutive impact of a new equity financing on existing shareholders to evaluate an investor offer and prospective investors need to understand the existing cap table to ensure the terms they offer will properly incentivize the company’s founders and employee option holders.
The data included for each entry on a cap table would include the following, but the fields required vary by the types of financial instruments a company issues:
Name of each security or option holder
Type of instrument held (e.g., common shares, preferred shares, warrants)
Number of outstanding instruments held
Number of fully diluted shares held
Ownership %
Grant date / date of issuance
Expiration or maturity date (where applicable)
Price per instrument
Capital invested (where applicable)
Instrument terms (e.g., liquidation preference, valuation cap)
The detailed information required to build a functional cap table is often condensed into a summary format to facilitate analysis and understanding. Cyndx Owner allows you to easily view your cap table in several useful ways. Holdings on a cap table can be summarized using various segmentations such as by holder type (e.g., founder or investor), security class (e.g., preferred and common stock), investment round, or by individual and firm. These segmentations enable decision makers to readily track the holdings through relevant categories with similar rights, interests, and incentives.
Read more about cap table management in our glossary here