I found an outside buyer. The company countered with its own lower offer instead.
This wasn’t a ROFR match — the company simply offered to buy me out itself, at its own price.
Angel investor, mid-sized position
Illustrative composite. A representative scenario built from how angel secondaries commonly play out — realistic numbers, written in the first person, not the record of a specific named person or company.
Deal snapshot
- Side
- Selling
- Sector
- HR tech
- Stage at entry
- Series A
- Original check
- $40,000
- Outside buyer's offer
- 10% below last round
- Company's counter
- 20% below last round
- What I accepted
- The company's buyback offer
Not a ROFR — a different kind of offer entirely
I'd sourced an outside buyer at a 10% discount, expecting the usual ROFR process where the company could match that price if it wanted the shares instead. Instead, the company came back with something different: an offer to repurchase my shares itself, using its own cash, at a 20% discount — worse pricing, but with a clean, fast, single-counterparty process.
Why I said yes to the worse price
The outside buyer's deal still needed full transfer paperwork, a new name on the cap table, and weeks of back-and-forth. The company's buyback needed one signature and closed in eight days, because the company was simply retiring the shares into its own treasury rather than processing a transfer to a new holder.
I did the math on the extra 10 points of discount against the time value of getting paid two months sooner, plus the near-zero chance of the deal falling apart. For my situation, faster and slightly worse won.
Why a company might offer this at all
Companies sometimes prefer buying back shares themselves over approving outside transfers — it keeps the cap table simpler and avoids letting an unfamiliar new investor in. If you get a buyback offer instead of a ROFR match, it's worth asking why; the answer is usually about cap-table control, not your specific shares.
What to take from this
- A company buyback offer is a distinct alternative to an outside sale, not a ROFR match — expect a worse price.
- Weigh the discount against the value of a faster, single-signature close.
- Companies often prefer buybacks to keep their cap table simple, not because of anything specific to your shares.
Every angel who has held a position long enough eventually faces a version of this decision. For the mechanics behind stories like this one, see the guide to how secondaries work.