Unable to exercise options at startup
I’m at a startup that’s 100% under a larger corporate umbrella. The startup recently provided almost every employee with zero equity refresh for their 2024 comp, which is why I found a new job and gave my notice. Now the company isn’t letting me exercise my options due to a “temporary hold” (but this hold hasn’t been so temporary as it’s been ongoing for several months) and HR is unresponsive to my questions about the ISOs I can’t exercise. My 90-day window to exercise is about to start and I’m starting to wonder what is going on. Anyone have experiences or advice? #equity #startup
Talk to the lawyer ASAP. They will send nice letter asking them based what probation of your stock option plan they are not proceeding with the exercise part of the deal. Typical option agreement says something along the lines that you could exercise anytime after options are vested. This will be money well spent. Good luck!
Why not just print out the form, sign it and send it in with a check. It's not on a standard platform?
this is normal. when new funding is about to close they freeze exercise. if it extends for the full 90 days you are stuck because the 90 days is a legal requirement that cannot be sidestepped ongoing freeze for months is not normal but you have no recourse i guess you could delay your start at newco and tell oldco your new end date is after the thaw if the freeze IS actually due to new funding your exercise is likely to incur taxes. this is almost always a bad idea. so the most likely situation is you’ve lost nothing here
Oooh, that makes sense.
btw it’s dumb for startups to do equity refresh and that’s why you didn’t get one. any new options are net zero since it’s just self dilution. they have to create new options to give you the new options. it’s dumb for them and valueless for you.
Company name? Fintech by any chance?
Don't talk to HR, talk to a lawyer