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Learn Venture Capital

Understand how startup funding works, from SAFEs to term sheets.

Free to start. Built from a single prompt. No credit card.

Venture capital is a form of financing in which funds invest in young, high-growth startups in exchange for equity. A fund's general partners raise money from limited partners, invest across stages from pre-seed and seed to Series A and beyond, and rely on a small number of large outcomes to drive returns, a pattern often called the power law. Learning VC means understanding term sheets, SAFEs and convertible notes, pre-money and post-money valuation, cap tables, dilution and liquidation preferences. This page is educational, not investment or legal advice. Learnr creates a personalized venture capital course from one prompt in short lessons.

How to learn Venture Capital, step by step

Learn how a fund makes decisions. Understand general partners, limited partners, fund size, the investment period, management fees and carried interest. These explain why VCs need outsized outcomes and why they pass on good businesses that cannot grow very large.
Master valuation and dilution math. Practice the core identity: post-money valuation equals pre-money plus new investment, and an investor's ownership equals their investment divided by post-money. Model two rounds on a spreadsheet and watch the founders' stake change.
Build and update a cap table. Create a cap table with founders, an option pool and a seed round, then add a Series A. Notice how expanding the option pool before a round shifts dilution, which is a common negotiating point.
Read real term sheets and SAFEs. Y Combinator publishes its standard SAFE documents, and books like Venture Deals by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson walk through term sheet clauses. Learn valuation caps, discounts, liquidation preferences, pro rata rights and board seats.
Practice evaluating startups. Write short investment memos on public startups: market size, team, product, traction, competition and key risks. Comparing your reasoning with how events actually unfold builds judgment.
Keep the terms straight with daily review. The vocabulary is dense. A few minutes a day of Learnr lessons, with streaks, helps terms like participating preferred and anti-dilution become familiar before you need them.

What you'll learn

Explain how a VC fund is structured between GPs and LPs
Describe funding stages and what investors look for at each
Calculate pre-money and post-money valuation and dilution
Read a cap table and model a new round
Understand key term sheet terms like liquidation preference and pro rata

What's inside your Venture Capital course

A sample path Learnr builds for Venture Capital. Your real course adapts to your goal and level.

1. What venture capital is and how funds work
2. Startup stages and the power law of returns
3. Instruments: priced equity, SAFEs and convertible notes
4. Valuation, cap tables and dilution
5. Term sheets: economics and control terms
6. Sourcing, due diligence and fund performance metrics

How long does it take to learn Venture Capital?

The fundamentals take about 4 to 8 weeks at 3 to 5 hours a week. Investment judgment is built over years of seeing deals, and outcomes take a long time to become visible.

What you need before you start

Comfort with spreadsheets and basic finance, such as percentages, ownership and present value. Some knowledge of how startups operate makes the material much more concrete.

Common mistakes to avoid

Confusing pre-money and post-money valuation, which leads to wrong ownership math. Write out both before every calculation.
Focusing only on valuation and ignoring terms like liquidation preferences, which can matter more in many exit scenarios.
Treating venture investing like picking stocks. Returns depend on portfolio construction and a few large outcomes, so think in portfolios.

How Learnr builds your course

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Venture Capital questions, answered

What is a SAFE?

A SAFE, or simple agreement for future equity, is an instrument created by Y Combinator where an investor gives money now in exchange for equity at a future priced round, usually with a valuation cap or discount.

Can anyone invest in startups?

Rules differ by country. In the US, many private offerings are limited to accredited investors, though equity crowdfunding allows broader participation within limits. Consult a qualified professional before investing.