Venture Math
Session 03 / 11  ·  Fall 2026
The numbers that matter most are the ones nobody shares.
This course reveals them.
Using Carta’s proprietary data on 40,000+ startups, we’ll take a data-driven tour through the startup lifecycle—from co-founder equity splits to IPO—exposing the benchmarks founders won’t share and the math investors won’t explain.
Mercedes Bent
Mercedes
Bent
Co-Founder, Premise VC ·
Former Partner, Lightspeed Venture Partners
Co-founded Premise in 2025 with former NEA partner Vanessa Larco — a pre-seed and seed fund writing $500K–$3M checks into AI-native technical founders. Before that, six years as a partner at Lightspeed investing at the early stage, and an early employee and GM at General Assembly, where she grew her division from $0 to $30M+ in two years. Stanford MBA and MA in Education; Harvard AB.
Lorenzo Barberis Canonico
Hosted by Lorenzo Barberis Canonico,
President of Cassandra Labs
03 Series A & The Institutional Transition
The step-up from first-money-in seed to Series A: seed backs a team and a thesis on almost no data, while the A prices real traction — a higher bar, a board seat, and a new level of rigor
01 The Series A bar, and how hard it is to clear
02 How long it takes to get there
03 Bridges on the way to the A
04 Is the A even worth it
Date
Sept 16
Time
4:30 – 6:30pm
Location
Chou Hall N100
Register & full schedule
hilarious-droplet-6be.notion.site/
Venture-Math