I think that founders stock before a venture financing should be subject to the same general vesting terms as one would expect after a venture financing. A typical vesting schedule is four year vesting with a one year cliff. This means that 25% of the shares will vest one year from the vesting commencement date, with 1/48 of the total shares vesting every month thereafter, until the shares are completely vested after four years. The vesting commencement date can be the date of issuance of the shares, or an earlier date, in order to give the founder vesting credit for time spent working on the company prior to incorporation and/or issuance of the shares.
Some founders want to accelerate vesting upon a termination without cause or a constructive termination. (I will get around to defining these terms in future posts.) I’m not sure that this is really in the best interest of the founders. It is extremely difficult to terminate someone for cause, so termination of a founder will generally result in his/her shares being vested. For founders that have never worked with each other, I would generally counsel against acceleration of vesting upon a termination without cause or a constructive termination. If personalities clash or things don’t work out and a founder needs to be forced out, the remaining founder(s) will kick themselves for allowing the departing founder to leave with a significant equity stake.
If there is acceleration upon a termination without cause or constructive termination, I think the amount of acceleration should be similar to the amount of severance that a person may receive in the same situation. If six to 12 months of severance might be justified if a person is terminated without cause, then six to 12 months vesting acceleration seems reasonable. Of course, the typical norm in technology companies is that there is no severance in any situation.
In addition, some founders may want to accelerate vesting upon a change of control. Single trigger change of control vesting means that the shares accelerate upon a change of control. This isn’t in the best interest of investors because the fully vested founders have little incentive to continue to work for an acquiror after a change of control. In order to incentivize these people, additional options may need to be granted, which increases the cost of the acquisition to the acquiror, potentially to the detriment of the investors. Double trigger change of control vesting means that the shares accelerate upon a change of control AND the founder is terminated without cause or a constructive termination occurs within 12 months of the change of control.
The amount of shares that accelerates upon these events can be 100%, or written as a certain number of months of vesting, such as twelve. I’ve had one VC express a strong opinion that the amount of vesting upon one of these events should not be 100%, but rather 12 to 24 months of vesting acceleration, due to the fact that it is extremely difficult to terminate someone without cause. I think that double trigger 100% acceleration for founders or certain executives is fairly accepted among investors. However, extending that protection to rank and file employees is not common.
In any event, VCs are likely to impose their own vesting terms and acceleration upon a Series A financing, so it may not matter what terms are implemented when the initial founders shares are issued. However, reasonable vesting and acceleration terms may survive the Series A financing, especially if it would be difficult to renegotiate with a critical founder in a team with multiple founders.