valuation.vc

This site provides a number of resources for people in the venture capital industry. These tools were developed and are maintained by Will Gornall and Ilya Strebulaev.

Startup Stock Option Value Calculator

Have you ever wondered about the value of the options and shares that startups issue to employees? If you ask the startup CEO, she tells you they are winning lottery tickets. If you ask your grandmother, she tells you they are worthless. If you use this calculator, you will get a better answer.

About the Authors

Will Gornall

Will Gornall

Associate Professor of Finance, University of British Columbia

will.gornall@sauder.ubc.ca
willgornall.com

Will Gornall is an expert on venture capital and innovation financing.

Ilya A. Strebulaev

Ilya A. Strebulaev

David S. Lobel Professor of Private Equity, Stanford University

istrebulaev@stanford.edu
ilyastrebulaev.com/

Ilya A. Strebulaev is an expert in corporate finance, venture capital, and financial decision-making.

Venture Capital Writing

The Venture Mindset Strebulaev, Ilya A and Dang, Alex National Bestseller, Financial Times Business Book Of The Month The Venture Mindset is a new mental model where failure is a must, ideas are rejected in their myriads in search of a single winner, due diligence is put on its head, dissent is encouraged, plugs are pulled, and time horizons are extended. It is fundamentally different from the mindset found throughout the rest of the business world. This mindset helps leaders to develop a strong pipeline of ideas, make smarter, quicker decisions, and deliver more value at scale.
The Value of Privacy and the Choice of Limited Partners by Venture Capitalists Abuzov, Rustam and Gornall, Will and Strebulaev, Ilya A Forthcoming in Journal of Financial Economics We show the venture capitalist response to open information laws prevented public LPs from investing in the best-performing funds
Customer Data Access and Fintech Entry: Early Evidence from Open Banking Babina, Tania and Bahaj, Saleem A. and Buchak, Greg and De Marco, Filippo and Foulis, Angus K. and Gornall, Will and Mazzola, Francesco and Yu, Tong Forthcoming in Journal of Financial Economics We provide a global overview of the causes and effects of open banking, policies that empower customers to share their banking data with fintechs A previous version of this manuscript was distributed as "Customer Data Access and Fintech Entry: Early Evidence from Open Banking" (2022) by Tania Babina, Greg Buchak, and Will Gornall.
Gender, Race, and Entrepreneurship: A Randomized Field Experiment on Venture Capitalists and Angels Gornall, Will and Strebulaev, Ilya A Forthcoming in Management Science We study gender and race in high-impact entrepreneurship using a field experiment Mentioned in BJ, Economist, Guardian, MarketWatch
Venture Capitalists and COVID-19 Gompers, Paul and Gornall, Will and Kaplan, Steven N and Strebulaev, Ilya A Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis 2021, 56(7), 2474-2499 We survey 1,000 venture capitalists on how they were affected by COVID-19 Mentioned in Inst. Investor, HLS Corp. Gov. Forum
Squaring Venture Capital Valuations with Reality Gornall, Will and Strebulaev, Ilya A Journal of Financial Economics 2020, 135(1), 120–143; Doriot Award We model venture capital-backed company exits and show post--money valuations exceed fair values by 48% Teaching slides about post-money valuation and value Code Tool to value employee stock options Mentioned in Barrons 1, 2, BC Business, BIV, BJ, Bloomberg, Bloomberg, TV, Business Insider 1, 2, CNBC, Economist 1, 2, El Economista, Entreprenuer 1, 2, Financial Post, Forbes, Fortune 1, 2, G&M, Inc., Institutional Investor, JDSupra, 36kr 1, 2, Les Echos, MSN, NBER, NY Mag, NYT, Pitchbook 1, 2, 3, Reuters, Stanford, Tech Crunch, TechVibes, The Real Deal, Wired, WSJ 1, 2, 3
How Do Venture Capitalists Make Decisions? Gompers, Paul A and Gornall, Will and Kaplan, Steven N and Strebulaev, Ilya A Journal of Financial Economics 2020, 135(1), 169–190; Jensen Prize We survey 885 venture capitalists to learn how they make decisions Summarized in this Harvard Business Review article Teaching slides on the venture capital investment selection process Mentioned in Bizztor, Chicago, Havard Law School Forum, Stanford, VentureBeat
A Valuation Model of Venture Capital-Backed Companies with Multiple Financing Rounds Gornall, Will and Strebulaev, Ilya A An option pricing model of venture capital-backed companies and their security values that incorporates the dilutive future financing rounds
The Economic Impact of Venture Capital Gornall, Will and Strebulaev, Ilya A We use data from public companies to quantify the role of venture capital in the economy Spreadsheet classifying companies as VC-backed Mentioned in National Review, Tech Republic
The Contracting and Valuation of Venture Capital-Backed Companies Gornall, Will and Strebulaev, Ilya A In: Eckbo, B.E., Phillips, G.M. , Sorensen, M. (eds) Handbook of the Economics of Corporate Finance. Amsterdam: North-Holland, an imprint of Elsevier, 2023. 1, 3-76 We outline key considerations for startup financing in a handbook chapter that may be a useful reference for faculty, students, and practitioners
Venture Capital Valuation Gornall, Will and Strebulaev, Ilya A In: Cumming, D., Hammer, B. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Private Equity. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2023. 1-5. We provide a brief outline of startup valuation considerations
How Venture Capitalists Make Decisions Gompers, Paul and Gornall, Will and Kaplan, Steven N and Strebulaev, Ilya A Harvard Business Review 99.2 (2021): 70-+ Non-technical summary of insights from "How Do Venture Capitalists Make Decisions?"