Survey of Equity Granting Practices for Investors and Investment Firms in Privately Held Companies

1. Welcome

Thank you for participating in the Survey of Equity Granting Practices for Investors and Investment Firms in Privately Held Companies survey. The survey has 14 questions and should take less than 10 minutes.

Participants who complete the survey will receive access to the results free of charge. To get the results, however, you must provide us with an e-mail address. E-mail addresses will be used only to distribute results, and the names of participating companies will not be disclosed.

The aim of this brief survey is to explore current equity granting practices in venture capitalist firms.

You do not have to be an NCEO member to take the survey. More information about us can be found at www.nceo.org. Please contact Corey Rosen (crosen@nceo.org or 510-208-1314) with any questions.

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* 1. Please describe yourself:

Venture capital firm

Individual equity investor

Advisory group or other third party

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* 2. What percentage of the stock in the companies you invest in is typically held by the founders?

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* 3. Do you have a standard policy on employee equity ownership for firms you work with?

Yes

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* 4. What percentage of the firms you work with require one of more officers of the company to purchase shares in their company?

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* 5. What percentage of the firms you work with provide equity grants (options, stock appreciation rights, phantom stock, restricted stock, or other awards) to one or more employees?

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* 6. What percentage of the firms you work with provide equity grants to non-management employees?

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* 7. What percentage of the firms you work with provide equity grants to most or all full-time employees?

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* 8. Other than founders equity, what percentage of the company total equity do you prefer to be granted in the form of options, stock appreciation rights, phantom stock, restricted stock, or other awards to employees?

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* 9. What percentage of the awards granted in the firms you work with typically go to each of the following groups:

"C" level executives

Other management

Supervisory and technical employees

Hourly and other non-supervisory, non-technical employees

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* 10. What percentage of the awards granted in the firms you work would you prefer to go to each of the following groups:

"C" level executives

Other management

Supervisory and technical employees

Hourly and other non-supervisory, non-technical employees

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* 11. What percentage of the equity grants in companies you work with are:

Stock options

Restricted stock

Restricted stock units

Stock appreciation rights

Phantom stock

Other

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* 12. What percentage of the firms you work with base awards primarily on the following:

Service only, all awards

Service and performance, all awards

Performance only, all awards

On-hire grants, all awards

Service only for all awards to non-management employees; performance or performance and service for managerial and executive employees

Other

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* 13. How frequently are equity awards typically granted in the firms you work with? Check all that apply.

On-hire

More often than one grant every two years

Less often than one grant every two years

On the achievement of specified targets only

On a discretionary basis

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* 14. What percentage of the firms you work with have valuations done in the following ways:

Outside appraisal

Board determination with professional advice

Board determination without professional advice

Fixed formula (book or other value)

Most recent financing round

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* 15. Any other comments?

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* 16. If you would like to receive the results of this survey, please enter your e-mail address below.Your contact information will not be analyzed with the data. It will be used solely for the purpose of providing you with results.