Venture Valuation Tool

What you'll do with it

Price a venture round and see what you actually get back. Set the pre-money valuation and check size, pick the instrument (equity, convertible note, pre-money SAFE, post-money SAFE), then model the dilution from every round that follows, the graduation rate between stages, and the proceeds at a range of exit values.

Built for VCs, angels, and syndicates who want to stress-test a deal before committing capital. It answers the investor's question, which is what this specific check returns under a set of assumptions, rather than the company's question of what the business is worth.

What's in the model

Investment scenarios. Model check size, valuation, instrument type, and conversion mechanics.
Dilution modeling. Follow-on rounds, new investors, option pool expansions.
Return analysis. Exit proceeds at multiple valuations, net of preferences and participation.
Portfolio construction. Graduation rates across stages, reserve allocation.

Two different valuation questions

People search for a valuation tool meaning one of two things, and they need different models.

Pricing a round and modeling the return. What ownership does a $500k check buy at a $6m pre? What does it look like after a Series A and a Series B? What comes back at a $200m exit after preferences? That is this tool.

Valuing the business itself. Discounted cash flow, terminal value, revenue and EBITDA multiples against comparables. That runs off a full forecast, so it lives on the Forecast sheet of the Standard Financial Model, and valuing early-stage companies walks through how both methods are implemented and where they mislead.

A quick note on later-stage and private equity work: the instruments here are venture-shaped, so SAFEs, notes, graduation rates, and preferences. If you are valuing a mature company on cash flows and multiples, start with the Standard Financial Model instead. If you need fund-level returns across a whole portfolio rather than one deal, that is the Venture Capital Model.

Edit with AI

Every cell open. Inputs in blue, formulas in black, rows documented. Built so you and your AI can edit without breaking it.

Context primer. Paste it into Claude or ChatGPT before you make a change.
Prompt guide. Ready-made prompts for deal analysis and portfolio construction.
Hemrock Skill. A drop-in Claude Agent Skill that loads this model's sheet map, prompts, and checks into any Claude Project. Free, with no connector to set up.
MCP server. On ChatGPT, Cursor, or another tool? The MCP server feeds the same context to any AI that speaks MCP.
Verify before you trust. The sanity-check prompts catch wrong references and confused metrics.

When to use something else

Need full fund-level cash flows, management fees, and LP distributions? Use the Venture Capital Model.
Need high-level fund economics without deal-level detail? Use the Fund Economics Tool.
Need a company-level cap table, not investor-level returns? Use the Cap Table & Exit Waterfall.

Common questions

Why use this when AI can run deal returns for me?
AI will model a deal and return an exit multiple. Whether it handled the SAFE conversion, the dilution from later rounds, and the liquidation preference correctly is the part that decides whether the number means anything. This is a structure where those mechanics are already right, so you analyze inside it instead of trusting a black box.

Will it handle my deal structure?
Equity rounds, convertible notes, pre-money and post-money SAFEs, follow-ons, and option pool expansions are all prebuilt. Every cell is open, so an unusual instrument is an edit, not a wall.

Does it do a DCF?
No, and that is deliberate. A DCF needs a full financial forecast underneath it, so it belongs in the Standard Financial Model, which calculates both a discounted cash flow and an EBITDA multiple valuation from the projections. This tool starts from a price someone is already proposing and works forward to your return.

Excel or Google Sheets?
Both. All formulas open.