Stéphane Paillard

Startup Equity and Dilution: What Every Founder Must Know

Equity and dilution are the twin forces that shape every founder’s economic outcome. From the moment a startup issues its first shares to the…

Startup Runway: How to Calculate, Manage, and Extend It

Runway — the number of months a startup can operate before it runs out of cash — is the most fundamental metric in startup…

Startup Valuation: Methods, Benchmarks, and How to Negotiate

Startup valuation is one of the most debated and least understood aspects of the fundraising process. Unlike mature companies that can be valued based…

Venture Debt for Startups: When and How to Use It

Venture debt has emerged as one of the most important complementary financing tools in the European startup ecosystem. Unlike equity funding, which requires founders…

Cap Table Management: The Complete Guide for Startup Founders

A cap table — short for capitalisation table — is the single most important financial document a startup founder will maintain from day one…

SAFE Notes, Convertible Notes & Term Sheets: A Founder’s Guide

Early-stage fundraising rarely begins with a traditional priced equity round. Instead, most pre-seed and seed investments are structured using one of two instruments: SAFE…

How to Raise a Seed Round in Europe: The Complete Guide

Raising a seed round in Europe has never been more accessible — or more competitive. The continent’s seed ecosystem has expanded dramatically over the…

Series A Funding: The Complete Playbook for European Founders

Series A funding represents the most critical inflection point in a startup’s journey — the moment when a promising early-stage company must prove it…

Startup Funding Guide: From Pre-Seed to IPO

Utrecht’s Guideways raises €1.2M for medtech compliance

Regulatory compliance is devouring three-quarters of medtech companies’ budgets, creating a bottleneck that’s particularly acute for European startups navigating both EU MDR requirements and…