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Comment by javery | Hacker News Reader

I am very curious how YC makes out in a deal like this - when there is 17M of capital invested after them in A and B rounds if there was any sort of liquidity preference you can pretty much guarantee YC didn't see a dime. (especially since 9M of this was retention for employees which makes me think that the employees weren't going to make anything from their equity/shares)

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I would imagine there's a lot of long term value created by folding sama and team into the YC ecosystem. I'd be willing to bet that Loopt isn't the last venture Sam's going to be involved in, and when the time comes to start something new YC will likely be part of the conversation.

This is why pg talks about looking at founders before their ideas.

Or sama becomes a full-time YC partner. Either way, it's a win for YC.

Assume they got 5% of the company for $20k.

It's very plausible they walked with between $500k and $1m. That's an awesome return on $20k.

Not how it works since with later rounds you have both dilution and probably a liquidity preference

The figures here work out almost exactly to Sequoia and NEA getting their 2x (they invested a combined $17M) and plus the employee pool (2 x $17M = $34M + $9.8M = $43.8 - the announced sale price was $43.4M)

That is just me speculating, but I would be surprised if it isn't far off.

YC doesn't have any anti-dilution clauses in their terms?

Surprising given their small stakes. All I've seen are the surface features of the YC deals, so I'm not up to speed on the specific terms they get.

The YC AA documents have a 1x preference (i.e. they can take their money out before distribution) and they have a right to reinvest pro-rata.

http://ycombinator.com/seriesaa.html

Those aren't the terms we use. Those docs are something we and WSGR created for the startups we fund to use to when raising money later. We don't get any liquidation preference or pro-rata rights.

Apparently not. But even if, they'd still have to buck up big time to maintain share.

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