Venture Capital interview preparation

Questions

100

Traced to a firm

31

Firms

12

Updated

September 2026

Asked at

All firmsGeneral Atlantic9Insight Partners7Silver Lake6Vista Equity Partners4Bessemer Venture Partners3ACAccel2Advent International2Battery Ventures2Andreessen Horowitz1Coatue Management1Sequoia Capital1WPWarburg Pincus1

Topic

All topicsSourcing and deal flow5Market sizing and estimation8Founders and teams5Unit economics and cohorts11Term sheets12Cap table and dilution7Early-stage valuation7Portfolio construction6Board and governance4Down rounds and secondaries4Exits and liquidity4Fund economics5Sector theses and markets6India venture market6Fit and motivation10

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1. 036What is a SAFE, and how does it convert?Term sheetsCorephone / first roundEarly-stage VCSeed funds

   Say this

   A simple agreement for future equity. You give the company money now and get shares later, when a priced round happens, at either a valuation cap or a discount to that round — whichever is better for you. There is no interest, no maturity date and no debt.

   Then walk it

   1. The point of it is speed. No negotiation on valuation, no board consent mechanics, a short standard document. A seed cheque can close in a week instead of six.
   2. Conversion: at the next priced round, the SAFE turns into preferred shares. If there is a $10m cap and the round prices at $20m post-money, you convert as if you had bought at $10m, so your money buys twice the shares the new investors get for the same amount.
   3. The discount version converts at, say, 20 percent below the round price. If both a cap and a discount are present, you take whichever gives you more shares — usually the cap in a round that goes well.
   4. Not debt, which is the key distinction from a convertible note: no interest accrual, no maturity, so no default and no repayment right. If the company never raises again and does not get bought, a SAFE can simply be worth nothing with no event to force the issue.
   5. The mechanics people get wrong: post-money SAFEs, which became the standard form, fix the investor's percentage of the post-money company, so all the dilution from the SAFE falls on the founders rather than being shared with the new round's investors. Pre-money SAFEs shared it.
   6. And the stacking problem, which is the real-world failure mode: founders raise SAFEs at rising caps for two years, then the priced round arrives and the combined conversion is far more dilutive than anyone modelled. I have seen founders discover they gave away 35 percent before the Series A. Always model the conversion before signing the next one.

   Where candidates lose it

   Calling it convertible debt. It is not debt — no interest, no maturity — and saying so immediately marks you as having read about it rather than used it. Also not knowing the pre-money versus post-money distinction, which is the single most consequential detail in the document.

   Expect next

   • What is the difference between a pre-money and post-money SAFE?
   • When would you use a convertible note instead?
   • A founder has raised four million dollars of SAFEs at three different caps. What happens at the Series A?

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