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Just exactly how were they proposing to cap your return? A safe or note with a cap is designed to cap the price you pay for shares, not cap your return.

Safes or notes without a cap are rare

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No price cap or a high cap means the discount is your max return during the period between when you wire your money and the priced round. Compare that to what an Seed VC or A Round VC would look for between their round and the next.

As an angel in that scenario, you’re investing with the risk profile of a very, very early company but the return profile of a later investor.

True but there is still value investing in no cap deals: access. It gives smaller investors access to deals they normally would not have. Angels would not typically have the opportunity to join later.

It also bypasses the sometimes arcane and high friction step of trying to value an early stage company.

I think everyone here has read these points in favor of notes many times. It's the counter arguments that never get written down.

Note that access isn't very useful if the returns aren't there (see the capped return point).

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