What is the chance of survival for a company that has already raised Series C funding but still hasn't made big yet?
Other than the founders, investors, advisors, disruptive product, humongous market, revenue stream (past/present/future), business model; the obvious thing is your offer.
Different components that include an offer is salary, perks (not food but medical insurance/plans, dental/vision,), yearly bonus if any (generally speaking startups do not have yearly bonus unless they are doing great on revenues but if they would be then they do not need money to raise), signon bonus (do not give too much importance since its one time) and the MAJOR component is the equity.
10,000 shares sounds like a lot but what does it exactly mean.
The company has 1M outstanding shares. That means 10,000 shares is equal to 1% of the company at that particular time. If the company goes and raises some more money, the company gets diluted which means additional shares are issued. Lets say with a round of financing, 100K shares were added. SO now you own (1M + 100K)/10000 = 0.9% of the company. What just happened is with the same no of shares your % in the company got reduced. So now the company will have to make a bigger exit in order for you to earn that money.
So go and ask the recruiter, what are the no of outstanding shares.
Do you like working there? Are the founders fully involved? Are the customers happy? Is it a great product in a growing market?
Series C doesn't mean a company won't succeed; they could easily be on the growth path and using additional capital to finance expansion. Don't write them off prematurely but do your due diligence as well :)
Join if you like work, salary and scope.