A Seed Stage Option Pool Runs About 10 to 15 Percent

A seed-stage startup option pool usually runs about 10 to 15 percent of fully diluted equity. Carta's cap-table data puts the typical figure near 12 to 13 percent, and Index Ventures, drawing on more than 20,000 option grants from over 1,650 startups across the US and Europe, benchmarks grants in the same broad band. Size the pool to the specific hires you need before your next round rather than to a round-number default, because every unused point is dilution you gave away early.

How Big Should a Startup Option Pool Be at Seed?

A seed-stage option pool usually runs about 10 to 15 percent of fully diluted equity, and that band holds across most first priced rounds. Carta's cap-table data puts the typical seed pool in the low teens, near 12 to 13 percent, and Index Ventures benchmarks grants from a large seed dataset in the same broad range. The right number for your company is not the median. It is whatever covers the specific hires you plan to make before your next round, because every point you reserve and never use is dilution you handed over early.

What the option pool actually pays for

The employee option pool is a block of equity set aside for future hires: engineers, early operators, and the first executives who join after the founders. It is not investor equity and it is not founder equity. It is a reserve carved out of the cap table so the company can pay talent in ownership when cash is tight, which for a seed-stage startup is always. Most of that pool goes to the engineers you hire early, which is why finding a technical co-founder and sizing the pool are really the same planning exercise.

The pool matters most in the exact moment founders tend to overlook it. When you raise a priced round, investors almost always require the pool to be sized or topped up before their money goes in. That timing is where the ownership math turns expensive.

The benchmarks, and what they do and do not say

Two reference points are worth knowing before you pick a number, and both are widely cited for good reason.

Index Ventures publishes OptionPlan, a seed equity calculator that early-stage founders use to size individual grants. It is built on a large grant dataset, but it is a calculator for sizing grants, not a published table of stage-level pool medians. Treat it as a tool for pressure-testing offers rather than as a benchmark of what pool percentage to reserve.

Carta, the cap-table platform used by tens of thousands of startups, reports equity data drawn from its own customer base. Its figures have put the typical seed pool in the low teens, near 12 to 13 percent. Read that as a center of gravity, not a target. Two companies with identical raises can justify very different pools depending on how many senior hires sit in the next twelve months.

The option-pool shuffle, where hidden dilution lives

Here is the mechanic that surprises most first-time founders. In a priced seed round, the new option pool is almost always created out of the pre-money valuation, which means it dilutes the founders and existing shareholders, not the incoming investor. Investors call this the option-pool shuffle, and it is standard practice rather than a trick.

The effect is that a pool you agreed to as a headline percentage lands entirely on your side of the table. A 15 percent pool created pre-money can cost founders several points of ownership beyond the investor's stake in that single round. That is why pool size is a negotiation and not a formality. Whether the pool is calculated pre-money or post-money changes who pays for it, and that clause deserves as much attention as the valuation itself.

Every unused point makes it worse over time. Options you reserve and do not grant stay in the pool, get carried into the next round, and dilute you again when investors require a top-up. An oversized pool is not a safety margin. It is dilution you pay for twice.

SAFEs delay the pool, they do not remove it

If you raise on a SAFE instead of a priced round, you may not create a formal pool on day one. That can feel like avoiding the problem. It only defers it. When the SAFE converts at your first priced round, the pool question arrives with it, usually on the same pre-money terms that push the cost onto founders. Planning the pool early, even while you are still raising on SAFEs, means you negotiate from a hiring plan instead of accepting a round number under time pressure.

How to size the pool from the bottom up

The defensible way to set a pool is to build it from a hiring plan, not from a benchmark.

List the roles you will hire before the next raise. Assign a rough equity grant to each based on seniority, using a public calculator like Index Ventures OptionPlan to sanity-check individual grants. Add them up, then add a modest buffer for hires you cannot yet name. The total is your pool. If that bottom-up number comes in at 9 percent, do not pad it to 15 to match a benchmark, because the padding is pure dilution. If it comes in at 17 percent because you are hiring a full senior team, defend the larger number with the plan behind it.

The benchmark exists to tell you when your number is unusual enough to double-check. It does not exist to set your number for you. A pool sized to reality is also easier to defend in a term-sheet negotiation, because you can point to named roles instead of a vague reserve.

How Avante handles this for its ventures

Avante co-founds AI-native companies for Brazil and LATAM, and cap-table design is decided once and reused across the portfolio rather than renegotiated venture by venture. Each company launches with a pre-built structure: founder vesting over four years with a one-year cliff, a pool sized to the actual first-year hiring plan, and pool timing negotiated up front so the option-pool shuffle does not quietly transfer founder ownership at the first priced round. It is the same discipline that governs how much equity a venture studio takes in the first place. The point is not a magic percentage. It is that founders spend their first ninety days on customers and hires instead of relearning cap-table mechanics the hard way.

Preguntas frecuentes

How big should a seed-stage option pool be?

Most seed pools run about 10 to 15 percent of fully diluted equity, and Carta's cap-table data puts the typical figure near 12 to 13 percent. The better approach is to size the pool to the hires you plan to make before your next round rather than defaulting to a benchmark number.

Does the option pool dilute founders or investors?

In a priced round the new pool is almost always created out of the pre-money valuation, so it dilutes founders and existing shareholders rather than the incoming investor. This is called the option-pool shuffle, and it is standard practice, which is why pool size is worth negotiating.

What is the option-pool shuffle?

It is the common practice of creating or topping up the employee option pool before an investor's money goes in, out of the pre-money valuation. The result is that the pool comes entirely from the founders' and existing shareholders' ownership, not the new investor's stake.

How should I decide the exact pool percentage?

Build it from the bottom up. List the roles you will hire before the next raise, assign each a rough equity grant by seniority, add a small buffer, and total it. A tool like Index Ventures OptionPlan helps sanity-check individual grants. Use the 10 to 15 percent benchmark only to check whether your number is unusual.

Do unused options just disappear?

No. Unused options stay in the pool and are carried into the next round, where investors typically require the pool to be topped back up. Because that top-up usually comes from the pre-money valuation again, an oversized pool dilutes founders more than once.