What are Cap Tables?

A capitalization table, more popularly referred to as a “cap table” is a manner of tracking the capitalization or ownership of a company. This will usually include past, present and future ownership.

Cap tables typically include the names of all persons that own shares in a company (or have future ownership, including only potential future ownership), the class of shares owned by that person (which can include individuals and other legal persons, such as a corporation) and the amount.

Cap tables usually display the fully diluted capitalization of a company, which expresses the ownership of each person in the company as if their shares and potential shares had been fully diluted based on attributes of their ownership, such as conversionary rights. Although not always the case, most cap tables will display fully diluted ownership percentages as if all shares across all classes have been converted to common shares, although this will vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

If you need to manage a simple cap table, you can try using MinuteBox’s free Cap Table Template resource by downloading it here.

For medium to complex cap tables, it is most common to use software to manage the intricate relationship amongst shareholders and classes of shares and if that is the case, you may wish to try advanced entity management software to assist with cap table management.