Practice Drills: Calculating ESOP Dilution Across Funding Rounds

A practice-first course built around one sample Indian startup and one sample employee grant, followed round by round. You start by reading a cap table properly: issued versus fully diluted shares, where the ESOP pool sits, and how pre-money, post-money and price per share tie together. Then you dilute the cap table yourself through a Seed round, a Series A and a Series B, using the one formula that explains every dilution calculation. You work through the option pool shuffle (why a pool top-up created before the round comes out of existing holders, not the new investor), size a pool refresh to hit a target, and fold a CCPS or iSAFE conversion into a round. The final chapter turns percentages into rupees: why a shrinking stake can still be worth more, what a down round does to option holders, and a capstone where you build the full four-round cap table end to end. Built for employees holding ESOPs, HR and L&D teams explaining grants, treasury and finance teams maintaining the cap table, and founders planning their next raise.