There is no better feeling in the world. When you're a startup and those first investments start coming in, it's a heady combination of validation and responsibility. Suddenly, there's money to spend. But that good feeling deflates fast in the face of a blank Excel spreadsheet, and terms to make your head spin.
Capography, launched last week, simplifies and standardizes the process of keeping track of all that money. Founder Tim Raybould, who is also CFO of
TicketLeap, hopes that Capography becomes the standard resource for startups and entrepreneurs to maintain and share cap tables. The cloud-based product has national and possibly international reach.
Capography, which is a separate business from TicketLeap, is available for a $199 annual fee, and includes three compelling features: instead of the blank slate of Excel, Capography provides a wizard, which guides the user through a series of questions. Next is a feature Raybould calls The Thinking Cap. "It's a widget at the bottom of the page," says Raybould. Open it up to get details on any term you don't understand. "It's more than just a definition. It cuts through the noise." There might be opinions from prominent figures in the industry, or examples of the term in action.
The third feature is the waterfall report. It shows startups exactly how profits would be distributed among investors. "The report dwindles it all down to one number: how much I get if I sell the company for X," says Raybould. "There are complicated terms that dictate who gets paid what first. Usually, founders don't get access to the waterfall until they are ready to sell the company. Capography's waterfall report allows you to model it out anytime."
Raybould developed Capography during nights and weekends, and plans to remain in his position as TicketLeap's CFO, where he maintains records on the company's $7 million in investments.
Just days after Capography was launched at the February 2012 Philly Tech Meetup, Philadelphia based
DocDep announced the launch of
SmartCap, which seems to be a direct competitor to Capography, but is aimed at VCs as well as venture backed companies, with a more complex pricing structure with some services for free and a tiered pricing structure for advanced offerings.
Source: Tim Raybould, Capography
Writer: Sue Spolan