What You Need to Know About Startup Funding Right Now, With Carta's Head of Insights, Peter Walker | The Startup Podcast (cross-post)
CRAFTED.
Employee option pools and early hire benchmarks
Peter gives ESOP guidance: start with ~8%–10% and median first-hire equity around 1.5%.
Looking to fund your startup? If you're new to the process, fundraising can be difficult to navigate. Not only are there a myriad of ways to go about it, but it can be hard to tell whether the tips, tricks, and advice floating around are based on any evidence at all.
[This week, I'm turning the mic over to my friends at The Startup Podcast. featuring Carta's head of insights on what you need to know about today's fundraising environment and how AI is affecting valuations, equity, and how companies grow. Here's how they describe this episode...]
So, what is the truth?
And what are the actual, data-backed insights that can help you choose the best method of fundraising for your own business?
Enter: Peter Walker.
As Head of Insights at Carta, he has access to, and industry knowledge about, the vast sets of funding data that will help you cut through the noise. Today, he joins Chris and Yaniv in discussing the real data behind startup funding trends in 2025 and the key takeaways you can apply to your own startups.
In this episode, you will:
- Discover why Silicon Valley valuations often hurt founders more than they help
- Understand how AI startups now account for nearly half of all venture funding, and what that means for non-AI founders
- Learn how lean AI-driven teams are reshaping early-stage hiring, with Series A companies shrinking from 25 employees to just 15
- See why most founders misunderstand SAFE notes
- Explore why 70% of startup employees never exercise their equity
- Uncover the reasons behind why nearly 40% of startups lose a co-founder within seven years
- Get clarity on founder vesting, equity splits, and why a six-year vesting schedule may protect your company better than four
- Reframe your goals as a founder: why chasing “life-changing money” isn’t the right reason to start a company
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Featured voices:
- Peter Walker - Head of Insights at Carta
- Yaniv Bernstein - Co-host of The Startup Podcast
- Chris Saad - Co-host of The Startup Podcast
- Me (Dan Blumberg) — I’m the host of CRAFTED. and the founder of Modern Product Minds. HMU if you want to build something great. I love building from zero to one.
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