# Fundraising Essentials ## First, let's take a look at market & hiring insights Use Carta's Market Insights feature to **gain essential data for fundraising and hiring,** allowing you to make informed decisions and strategically plan for growth. **WHY IT MATTERS:** By accessing data driven insights, you can **optimize your fundraising strategies** and **ensure your hiring packages are competitive**. Start by navigating to _View market insights_ under your _Essentials_ tab. **For Priced Rounds,** view data on: - Distribution of Valuation - Median Cash Raised **For SAFEs,** view insights on: - Distribution of Valuation Caps - Commonly appearing terms in SAFEs - Companies categorized by the number of investors in a SAFE round **For hiring**, you can better understand: - **Compensation Benchmarks:** Understand how much to pay early hires based on salary and equity benchmarks from Carta Total Compensation - **Determining Option Pool Size:** Use data insights from Carta to guide your decision on the size of your option pool - **First Hire Equity Benchmarks:** Understand how much equity companies are granting to their first hires --- ## Model the effects of fundraising on your cap table Whether you’re inputting **SAFEs**, **convertible** **notes** or **a priced round**, Carta makes it **easy to understand** the impact on your company’s cap table. Modeling a priced round Click for sound **WHY USE CARTA:** Building these models from scratch can be time consuming and difficult. With our modeling tools, **quickly and accurately model your round.** [**SAFEs & Convertible Notes**](https://support.carta.com/s/article/model-your-safes) **:** A few simple inputs and you’re ready to go - Carta's [**SAFE financings tool**](https://support.carta.com/s/article/safes-financing) can help you **generate SAFE documents**, **send them to investors** for signature, and **track** everything effortlessly in one place. [**Priced Rounds**](https://support.carta.com/s/article/round-modeling-for-companies) **:** ​Get a high level preview of the impact of one or multiple priced rounds. - Consider how to **adjust your option pool** during a financing round - Understand how previous **convertible notes or SAFEs will convert** with the round - **Indicate pro-rata rights** to understand the dollar amount required for existing holders to maintain current ownership percentages. [**Deal Ready Pro-Forma**](https://support.carta.com/s/article/deal-pro-forma-overview) **:** Generate an **accurate pro forma** with **iterative calculation capabilities**. - This is our most **advanced** modeling tool. - **Covers the nuances** including advanced terms, pro-rata allocation based on NVCA or custom percentages, promised options, and much more. - **Easily exports** to share with your law firm, investors, or admin team. --- ## Reports you may need & how to run them When **preparing for a raise**, you may have multiple parties asking for reports. With Carta, your report data is constantly updated, **using real-time data from cap table activity.** Exporting company reports Click for sound The **reporting suite** can be found under your _Essentials_ **or** _Cap Table_  tabs. - [Quickly and **easily search**](https://support.carta.com/s/article/export-reports#find-report) for the reports you need. - **After** **exporting**, find your reports in your _Downloads_ tab. Here are some reports **you might need** during the **fundraising process:** - [Detailed cap table report:](https://support.carta.com/s/article/export-reports#export-cap-table) We recommend checking the settings _‘Detailed’ and ‘Securities ledger by type and class’_ when exporting. > This will give you the most detailed view of your cap table. - [Certificates ledger](https://support.carta.com/s/article/export-reports#securities) - [Certificate Transactions](https://support.carta.com/s/article/export-reports#transactions) - [ISO/NSO Vesting](https://support.carta.com/s/article/export-reports#vesting) - [Documents](https://support.carta.com/s/article/export-reports#compliance) --- ## Set up your data room You can **streamline the exchange of critical information** during the due diligence phase using our data room feature, which is included with all Carta subscriptions. Navigate to the _Documents_   tab to [set up a data room](https://support.carta.com/s/article/deal-room-overview#setup). Features include: - **Managing** **access** for current stakeholders, your team or potential investors. - **Requiring an NDA** to be signed before accessing. - **Watermarking** PDFs or **disabling document downloads**. - **Tracking** **who** **has** **viewed** your documents or accessed your data room. **WHY IT MATTERS:** A data room **simplifies the exchange of legal information**, enabling authorized parties to access documents securely. This ensures a **smooth legal process,** can **speed up the closing process** and **increase investor confidence**. > A potential investor does not need to be on your cap table to be added to a Data Room. --- ## Easily generate & issue SAFEs to effortlessly track everything in one place With the SAFE financings tool, you can **generate SAFE documents**, **send them to investors** for signature, and **track funds** online. Adding a new SAFE Click for sound This automated process not only **saves founders time**, but also **eliminates the hassle** of managing and wrapping up funding. - [**Create SAFE documents**](https://support.carta.com/s/article/safes-financing#new-safe-creation) and tailor your specific terms **or** - [**Add existing SAFEs**](https://support.carta.com/s/article/safes-financing#existing-safe) to be reflected on your cap table immediately. - Choose to **fund online via Carta** or **provide offline wiring instructions** and once funds are confirmed, **SAFEs are automatically issued**. **Your security in mind:** > To fund your SAFE online through Carta, your company needs to complete a process called [Know Your Customer or KYC](/content/learn/private-funds/regulations/aml-kyc/index.html). Completing the KYC process ensures everything runs smoothly when you're raising funds or handling financial activities. --- ## Adding & managing stakeholders It’s important to understand how to add and manage stakeholders to **avoid administrative mistakes** and **maintain strong data integrity**. > You **do not need to add a stakeholder** to your ledger before issuing them securities for the first time, they are **automatically added** to [the ledger](https://support.carta.com/s/article/stakeholder-ledger) after you issue them securities. **MANAGING STAKEHOLDERS:** You can take various actions to manage stakeholders [individually](https://support.carta.com/s/article/stakeholder-ledger#individual) or [in bulk](https://support.carta.com/s/article/stakeholder-ledger#bulk-manage). A few reasons you may need to manage your stakeholders include: - **Name change** or spelling mistake - **Update the email** they receive Carta notifications to - **Remove duplicates** on the ledger - Updating stakeholder details such as **relationship, Cost Centers, employee IDs** and more. **TERMINATING STAKEHOLDERS:** [Terminating a stakeholder](https://support.carta.com/s/article/terminate-stakeholders-update) from the ledger will ensure that they no longer earn any **unvested shares**, and that those unvested shares are **returned to the equity pool**. **WHY IT MATTERS:** Your **stakeholder count** is based on the number of unique names on the cap table. A stakeholder or investment fund holding multiple securities will count as a single stakeholder. - A stakeholder is defined by any person or entity who holds an outstanding security. > [Integrating your HRIS system](https://support.carta.com/s/article/hris-integrations-overview) streamlines the process for adding and managing stakeholders. --- ## Communicating with investors & other key stakeholders During the fundraising process, you may need to communicate company updates, pitch decks, legal disclosures, or other messages. **WHY USE CARTA:** Keep  all communication **in one place** to keep your team organized and your data secure. - Add recipients **individually** or **by cap table relationship** (as well as recipients who are not on the cap table). - Be **able to track** which recipients have opened a message. - **Allow recipients to leave private comments** for the sender and have a secure conversation on Carta. Navigate to the _Documents_  tab to [draft a message](https://support.carta.com/s/article/communication-center#how) **from scratch** or **use one of our templates**. - Recipients will receive **an email notification** directing them their Carta inbox to view your message.