I've heard similar sentiments expressed through the Valley grapevine, but IMHO, they're misplaced. The culprit isn't SAFE notes, as a deal structure. The culprit is entrepreneurs who treat SAFE seed rounds as an inexhaustible piggybank that will tide them over until Series A.
Founders need to realize that if they had to take 3 seed rounds over 3 years totaling $2M in capital to get to a pre-money valuation of $5M, that's really bad. Your investors might as well have invested in Google stock. In previous fundraising climates, that would've been a dead company, so still owning 25% after that is an improvement, at least insofar as owning a slow-growing small business is an improvement over being an employee.
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[ 1.7 ms ] story [ 16.3 ms ] threadFounders need to realize that if they had to take 3 seed rounds over 3 years totaling $2M in capital to get to a pre-money valuation of $5M, that's really bad. Your investors might as well have invested in Google stock. In previous fundraising climates, that would've been a dead company, so still owning 25% after that is an improvement, at least insofar as owning a slow-growing small business is an improvement over being an employee.