We’re excited to share a new addition to our new toolkit: a standardized Cap Table Template in Microsoft Excel, now freely available to download. Please read the instructions in the workbook carefully.
Clear communication and transparency are essential when managing equity in a startup. Yet, in practice, inconsistent formats and confusing terminology often complicate the conversation between founders, investors, and advisors. With this new template, we aim to change that—by offering a clear, user-friendly, and comprehensive cap table format tailored to early-stage financing rounds.
Built for Early-Stage Deals
This cap table is designed to support the most common scenarios in early-stage startup investments, including:
- Calculating of new shares, the template automatically calculates the issuance of new shares on a fully diluted basis, requiring less external modelling
- Conversion of Convertible Loan Agreements (CLAs), with support for multiple discount rates and valuation caps
- Option pool creation and expansion, both pre- and post-money
- SARs issuance calculations, pre-money on a fully diluted basis
- Flexible rounding preferences for share price and disbursement amounts
The goal is to reduce the need for external modelling and help all parties involved—founders, investors, and legal or financial advisors—speak the same language from day one.
A Joint Effort
This template is the result of a collaborative initiative that we’re incredibly proud of. Special thanks go to Rolph Segers (TNO) for initiating the project, and to Hessel Mittelmeijer (DeepTechXL) and Rogier Ketelaars (Innovation Industries) for their valuable contributions along the way. This collective effort has been instrumental in shaping the model.
A Practical Addition to the Capital Waters Toolkit
We see this cap table as a natural extension of the other templates and guidance already available at Capital Waters. We hope that it will become a practical tool used widely by the startup ecosystem, whether you’re raising your first round or supporting one.
Please make sure to read the manual on the “info” sheet. In order to properly use this sheet you need to enable iterative calculations. (File -> Options -> Formula -> calculation options -> check ‘enable iterative calculation’). All cells that you can safely edit are colored blue, with a gray background. All other cells should be left alone as they contain formulas.
If you spot a bug or have ideas for improvement, don’t hesitate to reach out. Your feedback helps us keep the tools relevant and reliable.
Coming Soon: Waterfall Sheet
Later this year, we’ll be releasing a Waterfall Sheet that complements this cap table—offering even more transparency into future liquidity scenarios.
In the meantime, we invite you to explore the new Cap Table Template and start using it today. You can find it here.
Capital Waters remains committed to providing practical tools and documentation that contribute to a more transparent and efficient ecosystem for startups and investors in the Netherlands.