You raised capital. You want to keep running the company. Control after investment depends on four levers, not on the press release.
This page is for the founder negotiating the terms of an investment that will determine how decisions are made for the next five years.
Keeping control after investment depends on four structural levers: share class, board composition, protective provisions, and information rights. All four must be negotiated. Common minority investments transfer more control than founders realise because protective provisions and board structure compound. Modeling control by equity percentage alone is the common mistake.
Each answer is a single direct read. The full read is in the body.
Protective provisions are decisions that require investor approval beyond ordinary majority. Common: annual budget, debt, sale of company, dilution, founder departure. They effectively transfer veto rights on the listed matters regardless of equity percentage.
Board composition decides who controls hiring, firing, capital allocation, and strategy. A founder with majority equity but minority board has lost authority on the decisions that matter most.
Information rights start as transparency. Combined with protective provisions and active board members, they become approval rights in practice. The difference is structural, not legal.
Yes, when the four levers are negotiated together: protective share class, board composition that preserves founder majority on key matters, protective provisions limited to the smallest set, and information rights that do not bleed into approval. Each lever in isolation is insufficient.
Legal fees on the equity round, banker fees, accounting work, founder distraction during negotiation, internal time modelling the post-money structure.
Concessions made in week three of negotiation on terms the founder reads as paperwork. Standard protective provisions can carry a founder's authority on the decisions that matter most.
The equity percentage is the visible negotiation. The four levers operate independently; a 20 percent minority investor can hold structural control through board composition and protective provisions if the founder did not negotiate all four.
The pre-money valuation, the round size, the lead investor. These are the visible objects. The dangerous part is the term sheet language on board, voting, and provision rights, which usually arrives in week two or three and is treated as standard rather than negotiable.
Routes into the structural pattern beneath this decision.
The clauses that carry the real value transfer.
VC vs BootstrapThe umbrella capital decision.
Set Up A Board Without Losing ControlThe Atlas read on governance after capital.
Why Is My Board Asking For Control?The pain page that often follows a poorly-negotiated round.
Ways To WorkUse this after the term sheet is on the table.
Apply for Tier 01Single read on this specific term sheet.
If you want Stan to read this live decision, use the application route below.
When the decision is one commitment with real cost, Tier 01 is the commercial route.