The two main paths to an exit are acquisition (another company buys the startup outright) or an IPO (the company lists its shares on a public stock exchange). Either way, an exit is the moment when equity that previously only existed on paper — in a cap table, in a term sheet — finally converts into real, spendable money for founders, employees holding stock options, and investors.

Exits matter structurally to the entire venture capital model: VC funds are built on the assumption that most portfolio companies will fail or stay private indefinitely, and the fund’s returns to its own investors (LPs) depend entirely on the minority of companies that do eventually exit, especially the few standout successes. A nuance worth knowing: not every exit is a triumphant story — an “acquihire” (where a buyer is really acquiring the team rather than the product) and a distressed or fire-sale acquisition both technically count as exits too, just far less favorable ones for everyone holding equity.

🇵🇭 Philippine Example

Coins.ph, one of the Philippines' earliest and best-known fintech and cryptocurrency startups, was acquired by Indonesian ride-hailing and payments company GoJek in 2019 — one of the first clearly documented startup exits in the Philippine tech ecosystem.

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