[ac2u]

If you're a particularly hot startup with an already high valuation you might be able to find a private banker who will loan you the money secured against your ownership. Although this comes with interest you have to weight it up against the potential tax savings of taking a loan while keeping in mind the recourse options involved should the valuation of your startup go to zero.

Other than that, taking liquidity mid way through is sometimes called taking money off the table. Some VCs might even encourage it. The reason this is that while you, as a founder, may be over the moon at taking say, 5 million in VC and selling the company years later for 15, your VC wants the companies they invest in under a fund to 100-1000x in value.

Most of the returns in a successful fund come from 1-2 companies. So VCs need every one of their portfolio companies swinging for the fences so that one of them can be the unicorn.

You'll notice that they need to get lucky only once with one company whereas you're a sample size of one.

That's why VCs might want to dissuade you from taking what might be a great outcome for you (a 3x ROI) and swing for the fences, they dissuade you by letting you take money off the table early so that you can be happy at the bare minimum you captured some of the upside and can now swing for the fences.