Startups know exactly who owns them.
By the time a venture-backed startup reaches the scale of OpenAI or Anthropic, its cap table is concentrated: a Delaware C-corp where a small number of named institutions (founders, a few venture capital firms, sometimes a strategic) hold the great majority of the company, with a generic option pool for everyone else. The whole compliance and governance stack assumes the company knows exactly who its shareholders are.
Cap table — as the company sees it
- Founders22%
- Employee pool18%
- Seed (Y Combinator + angels)6%
- Series A — Andreessen11%
- Series B — Sequoia14%
- Series C — Tiger9%
- Series D — Lightspeed12%
- Strategic — Big Tech Co.8%
8named holders · 100% board-approved