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

Level

AnyCoreIntermediateHard

Type

AnyTechnicalFitCaseMarket viewBrainteaser

1. 042Build me a cap table from founding through Series B.Cap table and dilutionHardtechnicalEarly-stage VCGrowth equity

   Say this

   Work in percentages, round by round, and apply each round's dilution to everyone who came before. Two founders start at 100, a seed round takes 20, a Series A takes 22, a Series B takes 18, and the founders end up around 45 percent before you account for the option pool, or closer to 38 after it.

   Then walk it

   1. Founding: two founders, 50/50, 10 million shares, all common, four-year vesting with a one-year cliff.
   2. Seed: $3m at a $12m post-money, so 25 percent to the seed investor, plus a 10 percent pool established out of the pre-money. Founders go from 100 to about 65 percent between the two. The pool coming from the pre-money is why 100 minus 25 does not equal the founders' number.
   3. Series A: $12m at a $60m post-money, so 20 percent to the new investor, and a pool top-up to 12 percent. Everyone pre-existing is diluted by roughly 22 percent including the top-up, so the founders go from 65 to about 51.
   4. Series B: $30m at $170m post-money, 17.6 percent to the new lead, plus a small pool top-up. Founders land around 41 to 42 percent, and if the seed fund did not follow on it is down from 25 to about 16.
   5. The rule to say out loud, because it is the whole mechanic: each round's dilution applies multiplicatively to every prior holder. Three rounds at 20 percent each leaves you with 0.8 cubed, which is 51 percent, not 40. Candidates subtract when they should multiply.
   6. Then the two real-world complications I would flag. One, the pool top-up at each round comes out of the pre-money, so the founders fund the hires the new investor wants. Two, if there are SAFEs or notes outstanding, they convert first and they convert at their caps, so the Series A investor's own percentage is diluted by paper they did not price.

   Where candidates lose it

   Subtracting percentages instead of multiplying. Three 20 percent rounds do not take you to 40 percent. And forgetting the option pool at each round — it is typically 10 to 15 percent, it comes from the pre-money, and leaving it out makes the founders look 10 points richer than they are.

   Expect next

   • Where did the option pool come from in each round?
   • How much should the founders own at Series B for this to be fundable?
   • What happens to the seed investor if they do not follow on?

Firm tags come from public, anonymous candidate reports on Wall Street Oasis: strong signal, not sworn testimony. Firms are named as the places a question was reported, not as partners of Fin Maverick. Answers are written for this page to show how to think out loud; they are not scripts to recite.