Tools & glossary
Calculators and a reference glossary to use alongside our guides — model a deal, check your readiness, or look up a term.
Cap table & dilution calculator
See post-money valuation, your ownership percentage, and dilution from an option pool.
Return calculator
Estimate MOIC and IRR for a single deal outcome, given check size, ownership and dilution.
Readiness self-assessment
Seven honest questions to check whether you’re ready to start angel investing.
Glossary
34 searchable terms — SAFEs, cap tables, SPVs, valuation, and more, in plain language.
How to use these tools without fooling yourself
A calculator settles arithmetic, not judgement
Every number these tools produce depends entirely on the assumptions you feed them. The dilution calculator will tell you precisely what a round does to your ownership; it cannot tell you whether the valuation is sane. The return calculator will compute an IRR from an exit value you invented. Treat the output as a way to test how sensitive an outcome is to the inputs, not as a forecast — the most useful thing you can do with either is change one assumption at a time and watch what breaks.
The three numbers beginners get wrong
First, the option pool: pools are usually created before the money arrives, which means existing shareholders absorb the dilution and the effective price the new investor pays is better than the headline. Second, follow-on capacity: an angel who cannot participate in later rounds should model ownership after two or three more raises, not after this one. Third, the exit distribution: most angel portfolios return nothing on most positions, so a single deal modelled at a good outcome tells you very little about a portfolio.
Use them in this order
Start with the readiness self-assessment, because if the honest answer is that this money has a job attached, the other two tools are irrelevant. Then the dilution calculator, to understand what you would actually own after the round you are being offered. Then the return calculator, to see what would have to be true at exit for the position to matter to your net worth. If the answer to the last one is "an outcome larger than any exit that market has produced", the deal size or the entry price is wrong.