Free tool

What this round does to your ownership

Most dilution calculators tell you what the cheque costs you. This one also shows what the option pool costs you, which is the part founders find out at closing.

Last reviewed 2026-08-22

Post-money valuation
₦500,000,000
The investor gets
20.0%
The option pool takes
15.0%
You keep
65.0%
Worth, at this valuation
₦325,000,000
Lost to the investor's cheque
20.0 pts
Lost to the option pool
15.0 pts
The pool is costing you 15.0 points on its own. A pool created out of the pre-money is funded entirely by the people already on the cap table. The investor still gets exactly 20% either way. This is the single most common surprise at closing, and it is negotiable: ask for the pool to come out of the post-money, or for it to be sized against actual hiring plans rather than a round number.

Everything on this page is calculated in your browser. Nothing you type is sent to us, stored, or logged.

The option pool shuffle, in one paragraph

A term sheet says “15% option pool”. It is almost always created out of the pre-money valuation, which means the people already on the cap table pay for all of it and the new investor’s percentage is untouched. A founder reading “₦100m at a ₦400m pre-money” works out their dilution from the cheque, gets 20%, and is surprised when the closing documents say 35%.

It is negotiable. You can ask for the pool to come out of the post-money, so both sides share it, or you can size it against an actual hiring plan for the next eighteen months rather than accepting a round number. Either conversation is easier to have before you sign the term sheet than after.

A smaller slice is not automatically a worse outcome

The percentage matters less than what the money buys. A smaller share of a company that reached its next milestone is usually worth more than a larger share of one that ran out of runway. The point of knowing the number is to negotiate the parts that are negotiable, not to minimise dilution at any cost.

Put these numbers where an investor can read them

The GTM profile holds them as structured fields, scores what you have against a published rubric, and shows which blank one costs you the most.

Questions: support@ranked.ng

Read next