Build Anshvik Health's cap table through a seed, a Series A with a 12% pool inside the pre-money and a Series B with a fresh 10% pool. Show share counts, prices and founder ownership after each round, and say what the pools cost the founders.

Prices per share are Rs 32, Rs 81.60 and Rs 215.42, and the founders fall from 100% to 80%, 54.4% and 39.9%. Of the 60.1 points they give up, 45.1 go to investors who put in Rs 128 crore and 15.0 go to two option pools that put in nothing. The pools cost the founders three quarters as much ownership as the Rs 8 crore seed round did, and more than the Series B investor; the pool is where the headline pre-money quietly shrinks.

If you agree to sell a tenth of your house for Rs 10 lakh, but the buyer first insists you give a room to the caretaker, the buyer is paying Rs 10 lakh for a tenth of a smaller house: the price of your part just fell. An option pool created inside the pre-money is new shares issued before the investor's shares are priced, so the investor still pays the headline pre-money but the existing holders are priced on the pre-money less the pool. The seed round has no pool and is simple: Rs 32 crore over 1 crore shares is Rs 32 a share, the seed investor gets 25 lakh shares, and the founders hold 80% of 125 lakh shares.

At the Series A the post-money is Rs 150 crore and the pool must be 12% of it, Rs 18 crore. That comes out of the Rs 120 crore pre-money, leaving Rs 102 crore for the 125 lakh existing shares: Rs 81.60 a share, not the Rs 96 the headline suggests, 17.6% lower. The investor's Rs 30 crore buys 36.76 lakh shares and the pool is 22.06 lakh shares. The founders now hold 1 crore of 183.82 lakh shares, 54.4%: the investor took 20% of the company and the pool took 12%, both out of the people who were there before.

The Series A pool has all been granted, so the Series B investor asks for a fresh, unallocated pool of 10% of the Rs 540 crore post-money, Rs 54 crore, inside the pre-money. The 183.82 lakh existing shares are priced on Rs 396 crore: Rs 215.42 a share against a headline Rs 244.80. The investor's Rs 90 crore buys 41.78 lakh shares for 16.67%, and the pool is 25.07 lakh shares. The founders end with 1 crore of 250.67 lakh shares, 39.9%, worth Rs 215 crore at the round price. Granted options from the first pool still sit on the table at 8.8%; they are employees' shares now, not a pool.

Trace the founders' points step by step. The seed investor took 20 points for Rs 8 crore. At the A, the investor took 20% of what the founders then held, 16.0 points, and the pool took 12% of it, 9.6 points. At the B, the investor took 9.1 points and the fresh pool 5.4. The two pools cost the founders 15.0 points, three quarters of what the seed round cost and more than the Series B investor's 9.1 points, and not a rupee of the Rs 128 crore raised came from them. At the Series B price those pool points are worth Rs 81 crore.

That is not an argument against pools: the 60 hires who hold the first one are the company. It is an argument about who pays for them. A pool sized inside the pre-money is paid for by existing holders alone; a pool created after the round would be shared with the new investor and would raise the effective price by 17.6% at the A. The negotiable items are the size, whether it is sized to the hiring plan for the next 18 months rather than a round number, and whether unused options from the last pool count towards the new one. The limitation of the table is that it ignores preferences and anti-dilution, which decide who gets what at a weak exit; ownership percentages describe only a sale where everyone converts.