Also: Capitalisation table
The record of who owns what percentage of the company, including shares not yet issued.
At the start it is a spreadsheet with two rows. It gets complicated fast: option pool, SAFEs that haven't converted, unvested founder shares, advisor grants.
The one that surprises people is the option pool. Investors typically require it to be created *pre-money*, which means the dilution falls entirely on existing shareholders — you — rather than being shared with the incoming investor. A 10% pool carved out pre-money is 10% off the founders, not off everyone.
A messy cap table is a real fundraising obstacle. An absent founder holding a large unvested-but-never-clawed-back stake is the classic version, and it is usually unfixable without that person's cooperation.
Project types where this term stops being vocabulary and starts being a decision you have to make.