Co-founder vesting is the single cheapest insurance policy a startup can buy, and the one founders skip most often. Two people split the equity 50-50 on day one, shake hands, and start building. Eighteen months…
Key Takeaways Gross burn is the total cash you spend each month. Net burn is gross burn minus the cash you collect. Runway is built on net burn, not gross. Runway = current free cash…
Key Takeaways Financial due diligence is not an audit. Investors are not checking whether your books are clean for the tax department. They are checking whether the story you told them in the pitch is…
Most founders treat their ESOP as a single decision. They carve out a pool when an investor asks for one, hand out a few grants, and move on. Then, two rounds later, the pool is…
Unit Economics 101: The 6 Numbers Investors Stress-Test in Indian Startups (2026) I have sat on the founder's side of enough fundraising conversations to know the exact moment a pitch changes gear. It is not…
Key Takeaways A cap table that reconciles in Excel is not the same as a cap table that survives due diligence. Six structural issues commonly hide inside what founders describe as "clean". The most expensive…
Key Takeaways Series A due diligence typically reviews 80 to 100 documents across 8 categories: corporate, financial, tax, regulatory, IP, HR, commercial, and compliance. Most Indian startups have 30 to 40 of these ready when…
Key Takeaways SEBI notified the AIF Second Amendment Regulations 2026 on April 15, 2026, creating an "Inoperative Fund" classification for AIFs that cannot deploy capital in time. Regulation 29 now requires every AIF to file…
Key Takeaways A Delaware Flip moves the parent company to the US. A Reverse Flip moves it back to India. The Delaware Flip triggers Indian capital gains tax at an effective rate of about 14.95…
Note: All section references in this article are to the Income-tax Act 2025 (effective April 1, 2026), which has re-enacted the corresponding provisions of the Income-tax Act 1961 without substantive change to the transfer pricing…
