Equidam

Startup Valuation | The best startups are valued, not priced.

[Equidam @equidam]

The companies which had the greatest impact on the world (e.g. SpaceX, AirBnB, Coinbase) often faced the steepest challenges when fundraising.

Valuation, done properly, helps investors understand the potential of novel ideas.

It drives returns, and it accelerates progress.

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~15% of US employees own equity. In Europe: ~7%. The gap is real.

🔗

[Equidam @equidam]

ElevenLabs has to *convince* its own staff to take equity.

Mati Staniszewski (CEO) on Sequoia's pod:
"In Poland we almost have to *force* employees to take the equity. In the US everybody knows it's worth something."

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If your business runs through SPVs, JVs or project finance, the usual early-stage valuation shortcuts quietly break. New on the blog: how to value a startup with subsidiaries and SPVs.

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Founders often hide what they've already done before fundraising.

Daniel Faloppa's advice: show all of it. Office, supplier contacts, registration, prior spend. Every piece lowers the risk the investor is pricing.

[Equidam @equidam]

Out of 150 founders applying for pre-seed:

5 get funded.
1 reaches Series A.

That's 0.66%.

Not because investors are wrong — because the asset class only works if 1 in 10 returns 10x.

Build the company that doesn't need VC. Then choose.

Full funnel math:

[Equidam @equidam]

885 lines. 44KB. Every number labelled. Every method explained in plain English. Formulas, glossary, industry benchmarks in the appendix.

That's what's inside Equidam's new Markdown export, the format AI assistants actually want to read.

[Equidam @equidam]

When software is cheap to build, the software moat goes away.

What's left is what was there before SaaS: brand, data, hardware, research, patents. And distribution power.

Daniel on the Bee Formless podcast, 2 min:

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How Equidam started: a blog in 2012, written because founders kept asking how to calculate a valuation and nobody had a good answer.

Daniel tells the story on the Bee Formless podcast:

[Equidam @equidam]

The €600K gap:

Between what angels can give you (<600K) and what VCs will write a cheque for (>600K), there's a band most European hardware founders fall into. Public funding programmes are *supposed* to fill it.

Mostly, they don't.

🎧 Ep18 of The Equidam Podcast:

[Equidam @equidam]

Just shipped: a Markdown export of the Equidam valuation report, built for AI assistants.

Download .md → upload to ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini → ask anything about your valuation. PDFs lose structure. Markdown doesn't.

Live now on the Downloads tab.

[Equidam @equidam]

New episode: Drilling for Funding with Moritz Pill of Borobotics.

Hardware fundraising in Europe — angels, drilling-industry strategics, Swiss public funding (InnoSuisse, Venture Kick), specialist VCs, and the €600K gap nobody wants to fill.

🎧

[Equidam @equidam]

Know your worth. Defend your raise.

Median pre-seed in H2 2025: $5.61M valuation, $0.80M raised, ~13% dilution. If your numbers are off, you'll find out at the term sheet — or worse, after.

Benchmark yours before the conversation: https://t.co/97OFV7ziLK

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Co-created with Gianluca Bellan.

[Equidam @equidam]

Something new that we feel the startup ecosystem needed: The Dutch Startup Calendar.

A monthly newsletter listing the upcoming startup events across the Netherlands. Sent on the 20th of each month.

Search 'dutchstartupcalendar' on Substack to subscribe.

[Equidam @equidam]

Software still prices like software. Everything else prices like it needs the money.

If you're pre-seed outside SaaS, benchmark against your sector, not the headline.

Full H2 2025 Valuation Delta: https://t.co/ACH7lV0dF8

[Equidam @equidam]

Not all pre-seed rounds are priced the same. H2 2025, by industry (capital / valuation / dilution):

Software: $0.85M / $5.61M / 13.2%
Finance: $1.33M / $5.02M / 21.0%
Energy/Climate: $0.87M / $3.39M / 20.5%
Other: $0.81M / $2.98M / 21.5%

[Equidam @equidam]

Finance founders raise 1.6x the capital of software founders — for a lower valuation — and give up ~8 points more of the company.

Capital intensity compounds. More dollars in + lower multiple = the dilution gap writes itself.

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#Upstream2026

[Equidam @equidam]

Upstream Festival is back in Rotterdam — May 21, 7th edition.

Founders, investors, corporate changemakers. Three tracks: Port & Maritime, Health & Wellbeing, Climate & Energy. Workshops, speeddates, NL Startup Competition.

15% off with code 15%EQUIDAM
upstreamfestival dot com

[Equidam @equidam]

Equidam is not a third-party valuer. Your fund runs the valuations on our platform. Auditors review your work — against an IPEV-aligned method, benchmarked inputs, consistent portfolio-wide.

https://t.co/sMevstDjov

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New piece: are Equidam valuations auditor-friendly?

Short answer: yes. But the longer answer matters more.