Is Series FF (Founders Fund) stock a sham?

While browsing a legal site aimed at start-ups that was mentioned on TheFunded.com, I saw this article:

http://www.startupcompanylawyer.com/2007/12/22/what-is-series-ff-stock/

Hmm. Series FF stock does not seem all that special. Basically, it is stock that you can sell to investors in later rounds with the preferences of the later rounds as long as everyone and their mother let’s you do it. The later stage preferences only kick in for the buyer if the stock is sold. It does incent founders to increase stock price.

When I first heard about the concept and the approach taken by the Founders Fund, I was impressed. Now that I am digging into the details, I am a little more skeptical.

My (rough) idea for an equivalent mechanism is a “Super Preferred” being offered to founders and Angel investors. This class of stock would always maintain equal or greater preferences to all other investors with the usual equity transfer restrictions applied to founders.

Not only does the Super Preferred allow the founder to take money off of the table by selling some portion of the “Super Series,” which will always be super until IPO, but it also provides the earliest investors and hardest working group of founders a good return in most exit scenarios. What is wrong with that?

About admin

Adeo Ressi is Founding Member of TheFunded.com, an online community of 12,000 CEOs to research, rate, and review funding sources worldwide. Adeo also runs the Founder Institute, a mentoring program that helps entrepreneurs launch hundreds of world-class companies each year. The Institute is the eight start-up that Adeo has founded or built, four of which were acquired and three of which are still operating.
This entry was posted in City of the Future. Bookmark the permalink.

3 Responses to Is Series FF (Founders Fund) stock a sham?

  1. Yokum says:

    Thanks for browsing the site. In response to your question “What is wrong with that?” — VCs will not allow a “pari passu” (means equivalent) or “superior/senior” series of stock held by the founders/angel investors. The issue isn’t whether you can legally create it — it’s just whether investors will agree to having the “super series” outstanding.

  2. admin says:

    I 100% agree that today they will not allow a pari passu offer of Preferred that grows with each round. However, the future is a different story.

  3. wellbutrin says:

    dttfofe-hbe13p5-tw6q9418-0 cheap car insurance
    http://affordable-health-insurance.4sports.de/#1
    [url=http://xrl.us/bd45f#3]celebrex[/url]
    [url]http://xrl.us/bd45f#4[/url]
    [http://paxil.ixy.de/#5 paxil]
    “zoloft”:http://zoloft.e33.de/#6
    [LINK http://xrl.us/bd45f#7celebrex/LINK

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>