Continuing our “back to basics” snippets (like here on the types of angel groups), we are going to have a few posts about the “economic” terms of angel investments.
First up, what is “valuation” all about?
Most people get the basic idea about buying stocks. Apple’s share price is $139. There are a lot of Apple shares, so that if you would buy them all at $139 per share the total cost would be $730 billion. That’s Apple’s market cap, its valuation.
Angel deals work the same way. We buy shares in a company. When we speak about “valuation,” we mean the share price multiplied by the number of shares, to give a total valuation.
So, for example, we might invest in a company at a $2 million valuation. This means we buy shares at a price that means if we bought all the shares in a company it would cost us $2 million.
This doesn’t mean we’re investing $2 million, or that our shares are worth $2 million, or that the company is receiving $2 million.
Next up - more on "pre-money" valuation.