# Future Founders · Lesson 1: Read a real startup funding filing (45 minutes)

**For:** high school and early college classes (economics, entrepreneurship, computer science). Teacher-led.
**Cost:** free. **Accounts:** none. Students never sign up or share personal data; everything uses public pages.
**Data:** official US SEC Form D filings, via IRIS Rounds (https://iris-media.xyz/rounds).

## Learning goals
Students will be able to:
1. Explain what a Form D is and why companies file one.
2. Read the key numbers: amount sold, total offering, amount remaining, number of investors.
3. Distinguish facts (what the filing says) from guesses (valuation, revenue, success).
4. Form and defend a hypothesis about what a company might do next.

## 1. Warm-up (5 min)
Ask: *"When a startup raises money, how would you know? Who has to be told?"*
Explain: in the US, companies raising money privately under Regulation D file a short public notice with the SEC called a **Form D**. It shows how much they raised, not what the company is worth.

## 2. Explore (15 min), in pairs
1. Open **IRIS Rounds** and pick a city (e.g. San Francisco, Palo Alto or San Jose).
2. Choose one company and open its **filing link** (it goes to sec.gov).
3. Fill in the worksheet below **from the filing**, not from guesses.

| Field | What the filing says |
|---|---|
| Company name and city | |
| Industry group | |
| Total amount sold | |
| Total offering amount | |
| Amount remaining (still raising?) | |
| Number of investors | |
| Date of first sale | |

## 3. Facts vs. guesses (10 min), class discussion
Write two columns on the board: **"We know (it's in the filing)"** and **"We don't know"**.
Expected answers for "we don't know": valuation, revenue, profit, whether the company will succeed, who the investors are by name.
Key idea: **good analysts say "the filing doesn't tell us" instead of inventing a number.**

## 4. Hypothesis (10 min)
Each pair writes 3 sentences:
1. *What the company says it does* (from its own website).
2. *What the filing tells us* (one number).
3. *One prediction for the next 12 months*, labeled as a guess, with a confidence from 0 to 100%.

## 5. Exit ticket (5 min)
"Name one thing a Form D tells you and one thing it does not."

## Extensions
- **Compare two cities:** which raised more in the same two weeks? Why might that be?
- **Agent Readiness** (CS classes): run a company's website through https://iris-media.xyz/readiness and discuss what makes a site usable by AI agents.
- **Market literacy:** compare a startup round with a public company's numbers at https://iris-media.xyz/market/fundamentals.

## Notes for teachers
- Filings are public records published by the SEC. Company names and amounts are as filed.
- IRIS shows the date range each list covers. Remind students that "still raising" means the company reported an amount remaining **when it filed**, not necessarily today.
- Questions or a free classroom workshop: use the form at https://iris-media.xyz/education.