A venture round is a type of funding round used for venture capital financing, by which startup companies obtain investment, generally from venture capitalists and other institutional investors. The availability of venture funding is among the primary stimuli for the development of new companies and technologies.

Venture investors obtain special privileges that are not granted to holders of common stock. These are embodied in the various transaction documents. Common rights include:

Venture capital financing rounds typically have names relating to the class of stock being sold:

Option pool shuffle relates to the allocation of shares to a venture capital (VC) investor at the point of investment, when also creating an Employee Share Option Pool at the same time. There are two different approaches to determine the number of shares to allocate to each investor, the VC Friendly Approach and the Founder Friendly Approach.

The VC Friendly approach, which may also be called a pre-money pool, gives the VC a greater share of the company. The Share Options are allocated first, and then the VC is allocated its shares. The impact is the VC share allocation dilutes the Share Option Pool and the VC ends up with a greater percentage of the company

The Founder Friendly approach, which may also be called a post-money pool, gives the VC a smaller share of the company. The VC are allocated their shares first. The impact is that the VC is diluted by the new Share Option Pool and the VC ends up with a smaller percentage of the company

A company has 90,000 shares, and wants to (i) allocate 18,000 shares to a VC and (ii) create an Employee Share Option Pool (ESOP) of 10%.

The VC Friendly approach: